en.Wedoany.com Reported - The SINES Data Campus is a data center project planned for full operation by 2030, with a computing capacity expected to exceed 1.2GW, placing it among the largest data centers globally. The project is jointly operated by Start Campus (responsible for development, operation, and management), Nscale, and Microsoft. The new investment of €695 million ($812.6 million) has recently brought the project back into the spotlight, demonstrating to the data center industry the possibility of achieving sustainability in resource-intensive fields.
The project is located in Sines, on the Alentejo coast of Portugal. Start Campus, founded in Lisbon in 2020, discovered a repurposed industrial site in the town, adjacent to a recently decommissioned coal-fired power plant owned by EDP (Energias de Portugal). The campus's original seawater intake basin and direct access to international submarine fiber optic cables were key factors attracting businesses. The site was designated a Project of National Interest by the Portuguese government in March 2021. The first phase of construction began in April 2022, and the campus's first data center, SIN01, went online at the end of 2024. According to Eurostat data, 87.5% of Portugal's electricity came from renewable sources that same year, making the campus's vision of a low-carbon data center feasible. In 2025, Start Campus CEO Robert Dunn stated that the company is committed to laying the foundation for the next generation of sustainable, AI-oriented digital infrastructure, emphasizing that managing power on a large scale, efficiently, and intelligently is key.
The uniqueness of the SINES Data Campus lies in its water usage approach. SIN01 is the world's first AI data center to use seawater as its primary cooling method, drawing water directly from the Atlantic Ocean and returning it with a temperature increase of only 1 degree Celsius. Built on the site of the old coal-fired power plant, the facility directly utilizes the existing pipeline infrastructure. This approach completely avoids the issue of data centers consuming large amounts of freshwater and raising concerns about water scarcity. Its water utilization efficiency rating is zero, and its design PUE is 1.1, both of which are among the best in the industry.
The data center industry is facing questions about the rationality of resource consumption. According to United Nations data, data centers consumed approximately 448 TWh of electricity last year, a level exceeding that of all but ten countries worldwide. The SINES Data Campus is seen as a model for sustainable, low-impact computing. Nscale CEO and founder Josh Payne stated that the expansion deployment in Sines creates one of the most advanced environments in Europe for high-density AI infrastructure, and is also one of the largest AI infrastructure investments in Portugal's history, as well as one of the most significant in the EU. Start Campus CEO Robert Dunn noted that operating SIN01 in this manner requires daily attention to achieving sustainability.
