Summary
- The public-inquiry commissioner has issued a favourable opinion on Microsoft's Haut-Rhin proposal.
- The project would occupy roughly 35–36 hectares and includes multiple data-centre buildings and associated infrastructure.
- Maximum electricity consumption of about 1.5TWh annually keeps energy and environmental impacts central to the consent process.
Microsoft has received a favourable opinion following the public inquiry into its proposed data-centre development in Haut-Rhin, eastern France, clearing another procedural hurdle for a project expected to require more than €2bn of investment.
The proposed development would occupy roughly 35–36 hectares of agricultural land around Petit-Landau and Hombourg. Public documentation describes multiple data-centre buildings and associated technical infrastructure rather than a single structure, making the scheme a substantial industrial development by both land take and electricity demand.
The favourable inquiry opinion does not itself amount to final authorisation. French environmental and planning procedures have examined the data centre alongside the electricity infrastructure required to serve it, including two connections involving transmission operator RTE.
The project has attracted scrutiny because of the amount of electricity associated with the planned facility. Public documentation and reporting put maximum annual consumption at about 1,500GWh, making the development a material industrial load rather than a conventional commercial property project.
That scale puts the site into the same infrastructure debate affecting other large European campuses: whether local and national networks can accommodate concentrated new demand, what reinforcements are required, and how the environmental impact should be measured against the economic value attached to new digital capacity.
France occupies a particularly interesting position in that debate. The country combines a relatively low-carbon electricity system with significant nuclear generation, but that does not remove local network constraints or the opportunity cost of allocating large blocks of power to data centres. DataCentral reported in July that a French parliamentary commission had called for greater scrutiny of foreign-controlled data-centre projects as power allocation and digital sovereignty move further into industrial policy.
The Haut-Rhin development therefore faces a different energy context from projects in countries where new data-centre demand is more directly associated with additional gas generation. Its challenge is not simply the carbon intensity of each unit of electricity, but the scale of the connection, transmission investment, land use, construction impact, and long-term demand imposed by a continuously operating load.
The environmental authority has already examined the project and its related RTE infrastructure. Public-inquiry documentation has also brought questions around energy demand, water, landscaping, and local environmental effects into the consent process.
Microsoft has been expanding its European physical infrastructure rapidly. The company said earlier this month that it had brought 88 data centres online globally during its 2026 financial year, while European projects in Finland, France, and elsewhere continue to move through different stages of planning and construction.
Haut-Rhin has now passed an important consultation stage, but the project remains subject to the remaining authorisations. The next meaningful development will be the formal permitting outcome and greater clarity on the electrical and construction programme behind the proposed capacity.
