Polar adds 40MW AI-ready expansion to Norway campus

Polar Data Centers plans a new 40MW AI-ready facility, DRA02, at its Drangedal campus in Norway as demand rises for high-density compute infrastructure. The expansion is aimed at hyperscale, cloud and AI customers and extends the company’s push to build sustainable digital infrastructure across Europe.

Why it matters: - Demand for AI infrastructure is rising as workloads need more power, more cooling and more resilient systems. - Polar’s Drangedal expansion adds capacity for hyperscale, cloud and artificial intelligence customers that need scalable compute space. - The project strengthens Polar’s position in sustainable, high-performance digital infrastructure in Europe.

What happened: - Polar Data Centers announced DRA02, a new 40MW AI-ready data center at its flagship campus in Drangedal, Norway. - The facility is the next phase of Polar’s long-term strategy to build AI infrastructure across Europe. - The new build follows the earlier DRA01 facility at the same campus. - Construction of DRA02 is part of Polar’s wider European growth strategy.

The details: - DRA02 will deliver approximately 40MW of IT capacity. - The project will cover more than 21,300 square metres of technical space. - The facility will use direct liquid cooling. - DRA02 is designed to support the latest GPU technologies and chipsets. - The critical infrastructure and customer space are engineered for current and future generations of AI hardware. - The campus will run on renewable Norwegian hydroelectric energy. - Polar says Norway’s renewable power, stable grid and favorable climate make the site well suited for large-scale AI and cloud deployments. - The Drangedal campus is designed to support efficiency, resilience and long-term operational performance.

Between the lines: - Polar is positioning the Drangedal campus as a response to a structural shift in data center demand, not just a single customer buildout. - The focus on liquid cooling and GPU-ready design signals that AI infrastructure is moving beyond general-purpose data center specs. - The emphasis on renewable power suggests Polar is targeting customers that want both compute capacity and lower-emissions operations. - The company’s customer-led development model points to facilities being shaped around specific workload requirements rather than generic colocation needs.

What's next: - DRA02 will move through construction and, once complete, expand the Drangedal campus into one of Europe’s most advanced environments for AI, cloud and high-performance computing workloads. - Polar expects the new capacity to support customers as AI deployments continue to scale. - The company said the project will help customers scale with confidence, though no completion date was provided.

The bottom line: - Polar is betting that AI demand will keep driving specialized data center expansion, and it is using its Norway campus to compete on power, cooling and sustainability.