Nebius Signs LOI to Anchor VOLT's 600MW Rotterdam AI Gigafactory

VOLT has lined up Nebius as the first off-taker at its Rotterdam AI Gigafactory, the anchor customer the Dutch developer needs before it can take a 600 MW campus at the Port of Rotterdam to lenders. The letter of intent, announced Monday, covers a long-term lease, with a first phase of two buildings at 100 MW of IT capacity each anFeatured editorial image from reporting covering the Nebius agreement for VOLT's Rotterdam AI Gigafactory.d an estimated €7 billion ($7.83 billion) investment.

VOLT now describes the campus as six buildings totaling 600 MW of IT capacity, down from the "up to 800 MW" cited when the project was unveiled in April, as reported. About €2.5 billion of the first-phase budget covers construction and grid works, with roughly €4.5 billion for compute hardware. Power is to come from North Sea offshore wind under a partnership with Eneco, and the brownfield Europoort site already holds a high-voltage transmission connection.

"The concerns about electricity are justified," said Han de Groot, founder and chief executive of VOLT. "Our starting point is to use electricity from offshore wind farms, close to where it comes ashore in the port of Rotterdam. In doing so, we bring electricity demand to the energy source. That limits transmission inland over the overcrowded electricity grid."

How much capacity Nebius will take is unresolved. VOLT says only that its partner holds a significant portion of the campus. Dutch reporting, summarized by Tech Times, puts the commitment at up to 200 MW and room for 100,000 AI chips, with first capacity arriving in late 2029 or early 2030. Neither side disclosed financial terms, and VOLT calls the €7 billion figure an estimate rather than a contract value.

"We want Europe to be successful on the global stage," said Arkady Volozh, chief executive of Nebius. "As we continue to build out trusted AI infrastructure around the world, we are supporting the Rotterdam AI Gigafactory and working with leading Dutch entrepreneurs to strengthen the Netherlands' independent AI capacity."

The scale gap is stark. Baxtel counts 28 data centers in the Rotterdam-The Hague market, the third largest in the Netherlands, with none under construction and the biggest operating facility listed at 4 MW.

VOLT is also developing AI factories in Dubai and Hyderabad, and it launched its Dutch AI Cloud from an Amsterdam colocation facility this month. Nebius, which reported more than 750 MW of contracted power in EMEA and targets more than 3 GW by the end of 2026, is building a gigawatt-scale campus in Independence, Missouri. Baxtel tracks 14 Nebius sites. Shares in the company slipped about 3.5 percent on the day the Rotterdam plan was confirmed.

Anchor tenants are the gate on Europe's AI buildout. A campus this size cannot move from development to construction without a creditworthy customer under a long-term contract, and Nebius is now that signature. Whether Rotterdam reaches 600 MW or stalls near the first 200 MW depends on how many more customers follow.

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