Pure DC is building the city’s largest data center in Amsterdam Westpoort, with Microsoft as its sole tenant. The complex consumes 420 million liters of industrial water per year for cooling. Its electricity consumption is equivalent to that of nearly all Amsterdam households combined. Although politicians have expressed criticism, this hyperscale project still falls under old regulations that permit this scale.
Local lawmakers have asked the North Holland provincial government for an explanation. In response, the government stated that the data halls and UPS systems consume 420 million liters of water per week for cooling.
Pure DC issued a press release in December explaining this high consumption. The facility’s design is aimed at maximum efficiency, as measured by the industry standard PUE (power usage effectiveness). With a PUE of 1.2, however, the data center does not meet the target of 1.16 PUE that new data centers are expected to achieve.
The complex consists of three 85-meter-tall towers. As we previously reported, it was announced earlier this year that Microsoft will be the sole tenant of the project. Pure DC is investing approximately one billion euros in the project, backed by Oaktree Capital Management. Phased completion is scheduled to begin in 2028.
Industrial water, not drinking water
Pure DC’s cooling system uses industrial water, i.e., water that is not drinkable for humans. It is pre-treated river water from the Rhine. Waternet, the supplier of this water in the Western Port Area where Pure DC has built its data center, does not anticipate any issues. Only a “booster” in the piping was needed to accommodate the new location.
However, the 420,000 cubic meters are not distributed evenly throughout the year. For much of the year, the servers are cooled by outside air. Only when the outside temperature rises above 15 to 20 degrees does “wet cooling,” also known as adiabatic cooling, kick in. That accounts for 1,000 to 1,500 hours per year. That is when the volume of water—equivalent to several Olympic-sized swimming pools per day, as politicians often describe it—flows through the system. Consequently, the peak demand coincides precisely with the periods when the demand for drinking water is also at its highest.
Power, Politics, and Sustainability
The regulations prohibiting such a data center did not take effect until 2022, two to three years after the permit and power guarantee were issued to Pure DC. In any case, the power consumption is substantial. According to the permit application, the data center will consume 807 million kilowatt-hours per year. By comparison: all Amsterdam households together consumed 869.4 million kilowatt-hours in 2024. Where Pure DC found a loophole was that the building was split into three separate permits, each individually just below the hyperscale threshold.
Internal estimates from Microsoft show that global water consumption will increase significantly by 2030 due to the AI-driven expansion of data center capacity. But because regulators have so far not imposed strict requirements for data center operators to be transparent about their electricity and water consumption, such findings have been released voluntarily.
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