Comparison · Primary Market
Resita vs Amsterdam
Europe's largest data center cluster is under a grid moratorium and faces land scarcity. Resita offers EU-jurisdiction capacity at a structurally lower operational cost.
The Amsterdam Constraint
The Amsterdam metropolitan area hosts AMS1–AMS9 and dozens of carrier-neutral facilities — Europe's most concentrated data center market. It is also capacity-constrained. Liander (the regional grid operator) issued a grid connection moratorium for large new power consumers due to grid saturation. New large-scale connections face waits of 3–7 years or outright refusal. Land commands premium prices; planning permission is increasingly difficult due to local opposition to power consumption and cooling water use.
Amsterdam region
electricity
100 MW vs Amsterdam
| Factor | Resita | Amsterdam |
|---|---|---|
| Grid connection | 650 MVA adjacent · ATR 6–12 months | Moratorium · 3–7+ year queue |
| Electricity price | ~€0.14/kWh industrial | ~€0.22/kWh industrial |
| Annual saving (100 MW) | ~€70M/year vs Amsterdam | Baseline |
| Land | Industrial zone · available · municipal support | Scarce · expensive · planning resistance |
| EU jurisdiction | ✓ Romania · full EU · GDPR | ✓ Netherlands · full EU · GDPR |
| Water cooling | Bârzava: 3.63 m³/s | Amsterdam Westpoort: limited |
| Network connectivity | Regional · developing | Excellent · AMS-IX (world's largest) |
| Construction cost | Low (Romania) | Very high (Netherlands) |
| New DC planning | Industrial zone · municipal support | Increasingly restricted |
| EU PCI corridor | 4 PCI projects · ENTSO-E P144 | No equivalent adjacent corridor |
When Amsterdam Wins
For latency-sensitive inference workloads requiring direct AMS-IX peering, or enterprises mandating Amsterdam's existing carrier ecosystem. The AMS-IX interconnection fabric is unmatched in Europe for low-latency Western European peering.
When Resita Wins
For AI training, HPC, and batch compute where end-user latency is irrelevant and electricity cost, grid capacity, and EU jurisdiction are the binding constraints. The ~€70M/year operational saving at 100 MW compounds decisively across the asset lifecycle.