Silent power guzzlers: Switzerland’s booming data centres

Low hum, high energy: a data centre in canton Aargau, Switzerland. Keystone / Christian Beutler

Data centres are popping up across Switzerland, driven in part by the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI). But it comes at a cost: higher water consumption, the soaring use of electricity and the waste of heat left unused. By 2030, such centres could consume up to 15% of the country’s total electricity, writes Swiss public broadcaster, SRF.

In Dielsdorf, a village in canton Zurich which was once shaped by agriculture, farmland has shrunk by nearly a fifth in the past 40 years. But the most dramatic transformation has happened over the past four years. Fields once used to grow crops are now home to giant servers powering the data economy.

In 2023, Green.ch, one of Switzerland’s biggest digital service providers, launched its first high-performance data centre in Dielsdorf. Two others are currently under construction.

The three data centres are expected to produce a total capacity of 35 megawatts. Once up and running in 2026, they will consume seven times more electricity than the rest of the municipality of Dielsdorf, or around a tenth of the entire city of Zurich.

To make sure the servers will get the power they need, canton Zurich’s utility company EKZ is constructing a new substation on the campus grounds.

Before (2020) and after (2025): view of the site where the Green.ch campus is being built in Dielsdorf. The three new high-performance data centres are circled in red, the new transformer station in blue.

Thanks to its flat topography and vast size, the site in Dielsdorf offers perfect conditions for constructing such data centres. Its proximity to Zurich, home to many companies in the finance and service sectors, also makes it a strategic location.

However, Dielsdorf is no isolated case. Almost a dozen powerful data centres have recently been built or are due to open in the next few years in Switzerland.

A world without data centres has become unthinkable. These giant buildings filled with high-performance computers, which require complex maintenance and cooling, control much of what we do online.

The surge of AI tools such as ChatGPT has only intensified the appetite for computing power.

AI guzzles significantly more power, and it’s not only popular with private users. Many companies now rely on AI for data analysis, trend forecasts, personalised recommendations and advertising.

The number of companies renting space in Swiss data centres to use part of the servers is constantly on the rise. Among them are Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced plans to invest $400 million (CHF320 million) in Swiss data centres for cloud computing and AI.

Watch the report by the SRF news programme “10 vor 10” from June 24, 2025 here (in German):

Up to 15% of electricity consumption by 2030

The latest developments have a significant impact on the landscape and energy infrastructure. According to a study by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts on behalf of the Federal Office of Energy, data centres in Switzerland used around 2.1 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2019, which is about 3.6% of the country’s total power consumption.

Adrian Altenburger, author of the study and professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, told SRF that data centres currently use between 6% and 8% of Switzerland’s electricity. If the country’s total consumption remains as it is, this could rise to as much as 15% by 2030 – more than the entire canton of Zurich consumed in 2023.

Precise information on data centres is often not provided. By mapping more than 120 data centres, specialists at SRF Data have shed light on this booming industry for the first time.

You can find the full (German) version of SRF’s extensive multimedia feature hereExternal link.

The findings reveal that data centres are most likely to be built in places which offer the best conditions for digital infrastructure.

Sophisticated fibre-optic networks (green areas on the map) and high-voltage electricity grids (yellow lines on the map above) are key factors when choosing the right location for a data centre.

Central Switzerland, urban areas sauch as Geneva and Zurich, and the “Star of Laufenburg”, which is a major node in the European power grid where construction of the world’s largest battery began in early May, all offer ideal conditions.

Despite the growing appetite for power, Altenburger says there is currently no risk of the electricity grid buckling under the pressure.

But he also cannot rule out a scenario similar to what happened in Greater Dublin where a moratorium on new data centres has been decreed until 2028. In 2023, Ireland’s data centres consumed nearly 21% of the country’s total power.

Switzerland’s reputation for strict data protection laws, political stability, the availability of green energy, low earthquake risk and the fact that Zurich is a thriving hub for AI all help to explain why the country now boasts one of the highest densities of data centres per capita in Europe.

Since 2017, Switzerland has been attracting increasing attention from international investors with substantial capital. The SRF analysis shows that their arrival has transformed the market for data centres, which are becoming ever larger and more powerful.

The boom in local data centres has many advantages, including improved data protection and high-speed internet for the Swiss population. But recent examples show that the construction also comes with problems and potential for conflict.

Increased water consumption

One example is the village of Beringen in canton Schaffhausen, where one of the country’s most powerful data centres is due to open in 2026. It is expected to require as much electricity as three-quarters of the entire canton did in 2022.

To meet the electricity demand of the data centre, the canton’s electricity provider is forced to build a new substation which will be financed by the operator of the data centre.

Data centres not only guzzle huge amounts of power; depending on their cooling systems they also need vast amounts of water to prevent the server farms from overheating.

The local government of Beringen approved a water volume of 55,000 cubic metres per year – the equivalent of 110 swimming pools. Whether that’s enough will depend on the climate: hotter summers could increase the amount of water needed.

During extended dry spells, the data centre might have to tap into groundwater resources or the water reserves of neighbouring municipalities to ensure uninterrupted operation.

Data centres are often cooled with treated drinking water, even though alternatives such as greywater or lake water could be just as effective.

Other centres, such as the one in Dielsdorf, use closed-loop cooling systems, which significantly cuts their water consumption.

The heat we waste

Another bone of contention is the lack of any solution for the wasted heat generated by the data centres.

The Beringen plant, for example, was approved long before a plan was in place for using the waste heat. A study later showed that only 30% of the heat could be used locally. Now, a reservoir stores the excess heat for winter, and the city of Schaffhausen will be among its future buyers.

The situation is similar in Winterthur, where four data centres with a combined capacity of 40 megawatts are currently under construction. Once connected to the grid, Winterthur’s power consumption will soar by about 50%. Designed with sustainability in mind, these centres plan to channel the produced waste heat into the city’s district heating network.

However, just 700 metres down the road, Winterthur’s municipal waste incineration plant already meets about 20% of the city’s heat demand. The waste heat of the data centres would be fed into an already saturated network. Now, the city aims to expand the system to tap into the servers’ surplus heat – at least on the chilliest winter days.

But even if the waste heat can be used, long-term planning remains uncertain when it comes to relying on data centres as heat sources. This is because the use of their residual heat depends on economic factors, including the extension of fixed-term rental contracts and stable demand.

Microsoft’s recent withdrawal from several planned data centre projects shows just how uncertain the future of such projects can be.

Better use of AI

Data centres are the backbone of our digitalised world, but their environmental footprint is hefty. Operators are well aware of this, which is why many Swiss data centres are keen on running their centres entirely on renewable energy.

Angela Müller, head of the NGO AlgorithmWatch Switzerland, advocates using AI mindfully rather than deploying it everywhere just because it is technically possible. “There are exciting AI applications that can genuinely help address ecological challenges,” she says. “AI systems embedded in toothbrushes or which write our emails have very little to do with that.”

Sources

The data used by SRF for its analysis comes from a variety of sources such as netzwoche.chExternal link, datacentermap.comExternal link, datacenterplatform.comExternal link and the official websites of the data centre operators themselves.

Wherever possible, the information was carefully verified and partially updated manually. For data centres without published floor space, estimates were made based on satellite image analysis.

In addition to Swisstopo’s base map, the optical fibre networkExternal link was mapped using the Federal Office of Communication’s Broadband Atlas, and the electrical grid above 36kV was shown using data from the Federal Office of Energy’s geoservices (geodienste.chExternal link). 

Edited by Pauline Turuban. Adapted from German by Billi Bierling/ts