The Netherlands' national AI supercomputer is finally getting an address. On Monday, SURF, the IT cooperative serving Dutch education and research, announced that the machine will be installed at Eurofiber's data centre complex on the Zernike Campus in Groningen. The installation is scheduled for 2027, and the system is expected to be fully operational by early 2028.
According to RTV Noord, three sites were in the running for the contract, one of them being an annex of the former De Halm strawboard factory in the nearby town of Hoogkerk, which was not selected. The regional broadcaster pointed out that by selecting Eurofiber, both the government and the region had chosen to use an existing campus rather than constructing a new one.
The company SURF, acting on behalf of the consortium, emphasized the facility's sustainability. Almost all of the data centre's waste heat is fed into WarmteStad, Groningen's district heating company, and no surface or drinking water is employed for cooling. Since the site is already connected to the grid, SURF stated that the supercomputer will not increase network congestion.
The Dutch AI factory project involves a public contribution of €201 million, consisting of €71 million from EuroHPC JU, the EU's supercomputing agency, €70 million from the Dutch government, and €60 million from Nij Begun, the program established to repair Groningen and northern Drenthe following decades of earthquakes caused by gas extraction.
The European share was obtained in October 2025, when EuroHPC chose six new AI factory sites in Czechia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Spain. The schedule has been kept, with the cabinet intending for the supercomputer to be operating at full capacity in early 2027 when it carried out its part in June 2025.
However, the rising costs of AI infrastructure have affected the project. Axel Berg, the person in charge of the tender process for the supercomputer and data centre for SURF, told RTV Noord that the €64 million set aside for the computer itself no longer reaches as far as had been originally planned roughly 18 months earlier. The consortium made that point itself in an August update, stating that hardware is becoming rarer and more expensive and that delivery times are increasing, with consequences for both the scale and the timetable of the system.
When the supercomputer goes online, startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, researchers, and public organizations will be able to use it to develop and train AI models in the Netherlands. The consortium consists of SURF, TNO, Samenwerking Noord and the Dutch AI Coalition (AIC4NL). State secretary for digital economy and sovereignty Willemijn Aerdts said, "AI offers enormous opportunities for our healthcare, education, security and the entire economy."
The Dutch government's bid for sovereign AI compute rests on one machine in Groningen, and on what €64M will buy in a market that keeps moving the price. Groningen is the modest end of Europe's compute ambitions, with EuroHPC's call for AI gigafactories, facilities built around far larger chip counts, closing on November 12, and French companies already lining up a multi-billion bid.
Cet article a été rédigé avec l'assistance de l'IA.
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