By Cara Mascini, Switch Datacenters
This chapter is an excerpt from Greener Data: Volume Three, launched on Earth Day 2026. Featuring perspectives from 75+ sustainability leaders across the digital infrastructure ecosystem, the full book is available now on Amazon.
The Green Heart
If you travel south from Amsterdam, past the endless rows of logistics warehouses and the huge data centers of the Schiphol region, you’ll find yourself on the threshold of a different world. Here, the industrial area gives way to Het Groene Hart — the Green Heart — of the Netherlands, a patchwork of fields, waterways, and vast glasshouses. These greenhouses, home to the Netherlands’ world-renowned horticulture, are marvels of efficiency and productivity. Yet, beneath their glass roofs, a silent crisis brewing: the urgent need to decarbonize, move away from natural gas and find a new energy path to enable the country’s energy transition.
It is here, at the intersection of digital ambition and agricultural tradition, that Switch Datacenters AMS6 project is taking shape — challenging conventions, uniting unlikely partners, and setting a new standard for what data centers can mean for their community.
The Netherlands — A Global Powerhouse in Horticulture and Digital Infrastructure
Horticulture:1 2
•The Netherlands is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products, exporting over €100 billion annually.
•Dutch greenhouse horticulture alone produces around 6% of the world’s produce, with over 10,000 hectares dedicated to vegetables and flowers.
•The sector provides structural employment to over 83,000 people, rising to 134,000 in peak periods.
•The Netherlands is the largest exporter of fresh vegetables and by far the main player in global exports of cut flowers, ornamental plants, flower bulbs, trees, and seed potatoes.
•Horticulture and agriculture together account for about 10% of Dutch GDP and employment, and 17.5% of total Dutch exports.
Datacenters & Digital Infrastructure:3 4 5
•The Dutch digital infrastructure sector — including data centers, cloud, and connectivity — accounts for approximately 25% of the Netherlands’ GDP, making it one of the most significant contributors to the national economy.
•The data center sector alone contributes around €25 billion ($27 billion) annually.
•The sector directly and indirectly supports over 109,000 jobs in the tech sector and 2.1 million jobs in the broader digital economy.
•Amsterdam is one of Europe’s largest internet exchange points, making the country a central hub for global cloud providers and digital platforms.
•There are over 200 data centers nationwide, and over 80% of Dutch data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy.
•The sector attracts about 20% of all foreign direct investment into the country, outpacing even Schiphol Airport and the Port of Rotterdam in economic impact.
•The Netherlands ranks third in the EU’s Digital Economy and Society Index and is a pioneer in sustainable, energy-efficient digital infrastructure.
The Search for Space, Power — and Purpose
Switch Datacenters, a Dutch-based data center developer and operator, faced a challenge in 2023: how to grow in a region where digital demand for AI infrastructure is booming, but regulatory and environmental requirements are tightening. The digital economy’s appetite for compute power is insatiable, but new data center permits around Amsterdam are rare, with expansion limited by environmental, spatial, and regulatory constraints.
A true entrepreneurial spirit and founder of Switch Datacenters, Gregor Snip, didn’t accept limits easily. His search for a new site in the Netherlands led him beyond established datacenter clusters to De Kwakel — a region better known for tomatoes and tulips than terabytes. There, he saw not just a vacant logistics building, but an opportunity to create a datacenter that would serve the digital world and energize the greenhouses feeding the nation and beyond, while reusing existing structures and their concrete slab, saving building time and cutting significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Challenge: Energy, Heat, and the Limits of Electrification
The vision was bold, but the challenges were formidable. The Dutch government’s push to phase out natural gas — accelerated by earthquakes in Groningen — left the horticultural sector in a bind: gas-fired heating had to go, but the electricity grid was already stretched. For Liander, the regional grid operator, electrifying dozens of large greenhouses was an infrastructural nightmare. It couldn’t manage demand timing for large-scale heat pump connections, but was obligated to deliver. Each greenhouse needed a massive new connection, potentially requiring repeated roadworks and the construction of a new substation, costing time, money, and scarce underground space.
Early investigation by Liander, Switch Datacenters, and Greenport Aalsmeer – a major regional horticulture cluster – together with energy experts revealed the true scale of the challenge. Most growers in the area currently have a medium-voltage connection (<2 MVA). Electrification would require at least 35 growers to upgrade to high-capacity connections (>2 MVA), but the local substations were already full. Even if the grid could be expanded, there simply isn’t enough space under the roads or nearby soil for all the new cables. The conclusion was that full electrification of greenhouse heating was not a realistic option for the foreseeable future.
Building the Alliance
Yet, as the Switch Datacenters team and their partners soon realized, the problem was also the solution. Data centers consume renewable energy but generate enormous amounts of heat energy from the servers within — heat that is often wasted. This already green thermal energy could be captured, exchanged, and piped directly into the greenhouses next door. What if the data center became the beating heart of a new, green circular energy system, a data thermal solution provider?
Turning this vision into reality required more than technology. It demanded trust, negotiation, and willingness to break from tradition. The data center team began conversations with over fifty local growers who, despite some initial skepticism, were acutely aware of the need for change. Liander, too, saw the potential: by using green data center heat, the pressure on the grid would be dramatically reduced, and costly new infrastructure build could be avoided.
But hurdles remained. The province had not designated De Kwakel as a data center cluster for new data center development, making permitting uncertain. The technical challenge was equally daunting, designing a system to reliably capture, upgrade, and distribute heat to greenhouses while maintaining the ultra-high reliability that digital clients demand.
Collaboration quickly became intensive and iterative. Over two years, Switch Datacenters, growers, Greenport Aalsmeer, Glastuinbouw Nederland (the umbrella organisation of the Dutch horticulture industry), and technical advisors met frequently. Together, they mapped out technical, legal, and financial contours for the heat reuse initiative. Switch datacenters co-funded the initial business case and studies, and worked with growers to identify the best location for the central heat pump — a crucial input. Liander formed a board-backed strategy committee to join the team.
Anecdotes from these meetings reveal the spirit of partnership: growers sharing operational realities, engineers explaining data center cooling intricacies, and all parties brainstorming regulatory and technical solutions. The process wasn’t always smooth — debates over risk-sharing, specs, tax, and subsidies were frequent — but mutual understanding and trust grew, and a shared sense of purpose kept the group moving forward.
The AMS6 Solution: Technology Meets Sustainability
Switch Datacenters AMS6 is now in an advanced stage of design and permitting, awaiting the final green light from the municipality. The project is a model of modular, sustainable design. The plan is to repurpose the existing building, reusing the concrete slab and part of the former steel structure and offices to cut embodied carbon associated with a new build by over 30%. The data center itself is engineered for maximum efficiency, with a PUE of 1.13, based on a scenario of 70% liquid/ 30% air-cooling— among the best in the industry.
At the heart of the system is a closed-loop cooling network. Servers inside AMS6 will be cooled with liquid, absorbing waste heat. Instead of being released into the atmosphere, this warm liquid will route through a heat exchanger, transferring the energy to the greenhouse heating network. The system is planned to deliver heat at least 30–35°C, possibly even 55°C, with denser AI deployments, which will be further upgraded to the 60°C required by the growers using a central heat pump.
Switch Datacenters AMS6 specifications :
•Data center IT load design of 110 MW IT after 2030 to be built in modular phases, starting with 50 MW in 2027, to 83 MW in phase 2, with further expansions to 100+ MW
•Power-efficient site – low design power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.13 (depending on cooling design choices)
•Power density flexibility by phase due to modular design choices for power distribution and cooling, ultimate potential to grow to 1+ MW per rack
•The UPS configuration is distributed redundant, with N+1 power standby redundant per block of 3 generators
•100% local GHG emission-free and renewable power is used to electrify the data center facilities and IT load
•Cooling configuration – a hybrid combination of dry coolers and hybrid chillers with free cooling (for 70% DLC/30% air)
•Low water usage (WUE) due to a closed-loop water cooling system, also enabling server heat harvesting
•The data center plot size is 49.200 m2, with initially 21.340m2 colocation space and 2 halls of 7.335m2 whitespace
•Floor loads are typical of AI deployments with 2500 kg/m2 raised floors
•Green heat data thermal solution provided of 25MWth (in phase 1) with 50+ greenhouses in Greenport Aalsmeer
The technical specifics are striking. The central heat pump installation, in a neighboring hall, uses about 6 MVA of electricity — capacity Switch Datacenters makes available through “cable pooling” on its own grid connection. This innovative arrangement, supported by legal research and close cooperation with Liander, allows the growers to avoid the high costs and delays of a separate grid upgrade. It also means the growers benefit from better electricity tax rates.
The heat network itself will be built and operated by a new cooperative of the growers, Energiecoöperatie De Kwakel-Kudelstaart U.A., which already has 32 members representing 140 hectares of glass. When fully operational, the solution supplies ~70% of the annual heat demand of the greenhouses — more even if temperature rises due to dense AI compute — dramatically reducing reliance on natural gas and enabling the energy transition to electrification.
Overcoming Obstacles: The Business Case, the Grid, and Energy Savings
The technical solution is only part of the story. The business case must work for all parties. Detailed modeling shows that the collective heat network offers a 20–30% reduction in societal costs as compared to full electrification of heat supplied by the grid. The physical space required for new grid connections — a major bottleneck — is slashed by up to 90%. Instead of dozens of new high-voltage cables snaking through the countryside, a single, robust heat network does the job.
Energy savings are substantial:
By reusing green residual heat from AMS6, the need for gas-fired boilers in greenhouses will be reduced by up to 70%, avoiding the use of tens of millions of cubic meters of natural gas annually.
For every megawatt of heat delivered from the data center, ~ 100,000 cubic meters of natural gas is saved annually, translating to a reduction of ~ 200 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per MW per year. Across the full project, this means a reduction of over 10,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually for the participating growers.
The use of advanced liquid cooling and heat reuse at AMS6 reduces the data center’s own environmental footprint: energy consumed for cooling is reduced by 25–40%, and water use is reduced by up to 97%, compared to traditional air cooling.
The project is modular and future-proof; both the data center and the heat system will be built in phases, scaling up as more heat becomes available and more growers join the project. The cooperative will connect additional heat sources in the future, further increasing resilience and reducing dependence on any supplier.
Yet, the benefits are not evenly distributed. While society as a whole saves money and carbon, the costs and risks fall disproportionately on the growers and Switch Datacenters. Achieving a fair balance requires careful negotiation and shared commitment to the greater good. The project is a test case for how public and private interests can align in the service of sustainability.
Trust, Contracts, and Commitment
A project of this scale and complexity relies on trust, local integration, interaction, and clear agreements. Long-term political support and the grit to move from planning to execution are equally essential. Switch Datacenters has committed to making its green heat available to the cooperative for at least 15 years, matching the term of the SDE++ subsidy that will help finance the growers’ investments. The growers, for their part, are investing in the heat pump installation and network, and have secured a long-term lease on the necessary site.
Collaboration extends to every detail in the initiative, from the technical design of the heat exchangers and pumps, to the legal structure of the cooperative, to weekly meetings where progress is tracked and problems solved. Switch Datacenters has even adapted its cooling technology to deliver higher temperature green heat, making the system more efficient for the growers — even though this slightly reduces the data center’s own energy efficiency.
Why This Solution is Best for Everyone
The numbers tell the story. Electrification of greenhouse heating would require massive new grid infrastructure, years of delay, and costs that are simply not feasible for most growers. The green heat data center solution, by contrast, leverages existing assets, minimizes new construction, and creates a green circular energy system benefitting all parties:
For the growers: Up to 70% of annual heat demand is covered by green, locally sourced energy; lower energy costs in a future-proof, scalable solution.
For Switch Datacenters: A showcase for sustainable innovation, enabling power-dense AI infrastructure, a strong relationship with the local community, and a new model for data center development with minimum impact.
For the grid operator and society: Lower societal costs (20–30% less than full electrification), less pressure on the grid, and a dramatic reduction in natural gas use and CO₂ emissions.
AMS6 is not just a place where data will live — it is designed to be a living part of its environment, supporting jobs, education, infrastructure, and the local economy.
The Broader Impact: Sustainability, Society, and the Twin Transition
The impact of AMS6 extends far beyond its walls. As it moves through the final permitting stages, its significance is already clear. It is no longer just a data center project, but rather a blueprint for the future of digital infrastructure in a carbon-constrained world. The collaboration between Switch Datacenters, Liander, the growers, and local government is a model for how to unlock the potential of green data thermal solutions (aka waste heat), accelerate the energy transition, and create new forms of value for communities. It is a testament to the power of entrepreneurial vision, technical excellence, and genuine collaboration.
By demonstrating that data centers can be circular engines of sustainability, not just consumers of energy, the project challenges us to rethink digital infrastructure’s role in society. The lessons learned in De Kwakel are already informing new projects across Europe.
And for the broader public, AMS6 is a story of hope – proof that the digital, new AI and physical worlds can not only coexist, but thrive together, creating new possibilities for a sustainable digital future.
RESOURCES
1. CBS (2023). ‘Landbouwexport Nederland opnieuw boven 100 miljard euro’. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/03/landbouwexport-nederland-opnieuw-boven-100-miljard-euro
2. Rabobank (2022). ‘Dutch Horticulture: Global Leader in Greenhouse Innovation’. https://www.rabobank.com/en/about-rabobank/background-stories/food-agri/dutch-horticulture-global-leader-in-greenhouse-innovation.html
3. Digital Gateway to Europe (2023). ‘The Economic Impact of the Dutch Data Center Sector’. https://www.digitalgateway.eu/news/economic-impact-dutch-data-center-sector-2023/
4. Dutch Data Center Association (2023). ‘State of the Dutch Data Centers 2023’. https://www.dutchdatacenters.nl/publicaties/state-of-the-dutch-data-centers-2023/
5. European Commission (2023). ‘Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2023’. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi
Author: Courtney Burrows
Courtney Burrows is the Executive Editor of Greener Data and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sustainability at JSA, where she leads content strategy across PR, marketing, and media initiatives for the global digital infrastructure industry. With more than 20 years of experience — and over a decade dedicated to data centers — she curates expert insights focused on data center sustainability, innovation, and the evolving demands of an AI-driven world.
