Electricity demand from Belgian data centers is set to rise sharply—increasing two- to fivefold on current levels by 2035—as operators look beyond Europe’s traditional hubs to power the next wave of AI-driven growth. With mounting land and grid constraints across major markets, Belgium is emerging as a viable alternative. This shift raises tough questions for Belgium’s energy transition, as the country faces complex trade-offs between digital advancement and energy sustainability.
As AI adoption accelerates, digital services scale, and cloud workloads expand, computing demand is surging—and so is the need for data center infrastructure. A new BCG report reveals how this trend could significantly impact Belgium’s electricity system.
Europe’s main data center hubs—Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin (FLAP-D)—have historically dominated the landscape. But growing limitations on land, grid capacity, and political support are pushing data center developers to look beyond these locations.
Belgium currently ranks as a mid-tier destination for data center development. While it offers an average power cost outlook and lacks strong policy incentives or constraints, its central location within the FLAP-D corridor and its relatively less congested grid position it to benefit from shifting market dynamics. Additionally, heavy data center build-out in top-tier countries eventually leads to growing supply constraints, making them less attractive on a relative basis. This reality—and the anticipation surrounding it—is driving strong growth in today’s Tier-2 markets, including Belgium.
Our report outlines three scenarios for future data center development in Belgium, projecting that electricity demand from data centers could rise from 3 TWh today to between 7 TWh and 15.5 TWh by 2035. This increase in demand could raise its share of Belgium’s total electricity consumption from about 4% today to more than 10% by 2035. By 2050, electricity demand from data centers could further grow to between 10.5 TWh and 34 TWh. While this growth brings opportunities for economic impact and digital resilience, it also presents tough questions for Belgium’s energy system. Can the country secure enough low-carbon power without increasing its reliance on imports or turning to less carbon-efficient sources? How should it allocate scarce grid capacity across competing priorities? And should attracting more data centers be a policy goal?
Read the full report to understand how AI, cloud computing, and energy policy are becoming increasingly interconnected—and why the choices Belgium makes today will shape its digital and energy future.