Brookfield/Data4 Escaudain data center, Hauts-de-France, France

Brookfield/Data4 is building a 700 megawatt AI data center campus in Escaudain, in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France, on the site of the former Usinor steel plant. The local authority selected Brookfield/Data4 in December 2025 to study the 33-hectare site, and the company confirmed the 5 billion euro project in June 2026. It will be Data4's largest campus, alongside a second Brookfield-backed site the company is building at Cambrai, on a former air force base.

At the Choose France summit in June 2026, Brookfield raised its planned investment in French AI infrastructure to 30 billion euros, up from the 20 billion euros it announced in February 2025. Most of that money runs through Data4. "The expanded funding will support the development of a large-scale 700MW AI factory in Northern France, strengthen local communities, and create 2,500 permanent jobs," said Sikander Rashid, Brookfield's head of AI infrastructure and head of Europe.

The land had been vacant for 45 years, and the French government had listed it as one of 35 fast-track data center sites with a quick grid connection through the RTE network. Data4 plans four data centers on the campus and says it will use low-carbon concrete and recover waste heat from the servers. "With this major data center campus project dedicated to artificial intelligence, we aim to erase the last remnants of an industrial era and open a new, more technological chapter," said Aymeric Robin, mayor of nearby Raismes.

Data4 has not set a construction timeline or given the capacity of the first phase; further site studies and preliminary work are expected over the next year.