Green plans 2.6 million sq ft data center campus in Birr

By Grace Kim

Green plans a data center campus covering 2.6 million square feet (250,000 square metres) on acquired land in Birr, in the canton of Aargau in northern Switzerland.

The plot is the Grossacher and Grändel brownfield site (land with prior development), formerly owned by technology firm ABB. Green has not disclosed the facility’s projected compute power (processing capacity) or development cost. A company spokesperson said the firm could not provide estimates because the project remains in the planning phase.

Roger Süess, Green’s chief executive officer, said: “Green recognized early on the importance of data centers for the country’s digital development and has played a lasting role in shaping the industry. With the campus in Birr, we are continuing this pioneering work.”

Süess added: “We are pleased to carry out this project in a region with which Green has been closely connected for many years. Together with the municipality and the canton, we want to develop the site for the future and create added value for the region.”

Green will build the campus in phases. The developer also plans to transfer waste heat from servers into nearby district heating networks, which distribute heat to multiple buildings. Computing infrastructure is also likely to use a closed-loop cooling system (recirculating coolant); the design is intended to minimize the data center’s annual water consumption.

The site plan also reserves space for industrial and commercial facilities and for parkland open to the general public. Green says the Birr development would strengthen Switzerland’s digital sovereignty (domestic control of critical digital infrastructure) and make high-performance compute (large-scale computing capacity) more accessible to Swiss businesses and public organizations.

Green has set out the development model: phased construction, heat recovery and closed-loop cooling. It has not stated the facility’s compute power or capital requirement.

What does the Birr campus change for Aargau?

It adds a 250,000-square-metre development site to a canton with a modest listed data-center market. DataCenterMap lists only two facilities in Aargau, while Green runs three data centers in Lupfig. If Green develops the project, the campus would expand that base, although the size of its contribution remains unknown.

According to its website, Green, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Lupfig, operates seven data centers across Switzerland. Its three Lupfig sites give the company an existing operating base in Aargau. The Birr project would therefore extend Green’s local footprint rather than mark its entry into the canton.

In September 2025, Green entered the German market, established Green Datacenter Germany GmbH and began assessing several potential sites for new data center developments outside Frankfurt. The German assessment is additional to the Birr planning work and expands the company’s site-development activity beyond Switzerland.

For Aargau businesses and public organizations, the practical change is a 250,000-square-metre project with phased delivery, planned heat recovery and water-saving cooling. The scale of new computing supply and the investment required remain unknown because Green has disclosed neither figure and the project remains in planning.

That is the practical answer: Aargau now has a 250,000-square-metre data-center development site, but customers cannot yet quantify the computing capacity or investment it will bring.

The announcement also points readers to the DCN Zurich event later this year, where they can review the Swiss and wider DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) data-center market and meet executives and experts.