By Priya Raman

Aether Infrastructures has signed a preliminary sale agreement for a 90-hectare industrial site in Strasbourg, France, to host its first AI data center. The complex will carry the designation FR-SXB1. A parallel lease allows preliminary work to start before the purchase closes.

What does the deal cover?

The site is the former Dumarey Powerglide gearbox factory in the Port du Rhin district. Dumarey earmarked the plant for closure in January, cutting 320 jobs. Aether has not disclosed the purchase price. The agreement covers land and buildings, not an operating facility.

The site will also host a biomass production plant. That dual use sits at the center of Aether's energy strategy.

Who is behind Aether?

The consortium was formed to build two data centers under the European Commission's AI gigafactories program, as DCD reported in July. Partners include:

• SiPearl — a chip firm
• 2CRSi — a server maker
• Nhood — a real estate company
• Dassault Systèmes — a software and industrial group

2CRSi will run an on-site industrial facility for designing, assembling, integrating, testing, and qualifying data center modules (prefabricated units built off the data hall floor, then installed). The modules will be deployed at FR-SXB1 and marketed to third-party customers. Aether claims the site can become Europe's largest industrial site dedicated to AI infrastructure. No benchmark supports that claim yet. The site currently produces nothing.

How will it be powered?

The site has 25MW of grid power available. Aether says it is investigating additional energy sources, including a biomass power plant. That plant would generate electricity and produce biochar (a charcoal-like substance that captures carbon and serves as a soil enhancer). The company has not published capacity figures for the biomass plant. Module dimensions remain undisclosed.

Across its two planned campuses, Aether expects 42MW available. The second site, FR-SXB2, has no signed purchase yet; Aether hopes to close that deal by the end of the year. FR-SXB1 carries a stated 2027 opening target. Both dates are targets, not commitments.

What is the EU gigafactories context?

Aether is seeking funding from the €20 billion ($22.8 billion) EU gigafactories project. The Commission announced the program in February 2025. It plans three to five large supercomputing clusters across Europe to build compute capacity and digital sovereignty, each equipped with 100,000 AI chips for training advanced models.

Competing candidates include a French consortium led by Iliad and the Dutch company Volt. Selection outcomes remain unpublished. Aether's bid rests on two sites, one signed preliminary agreement, and 25MW of grid power. The Commission has selected no one yet.

The promise is large. The paper trail, so far, is thin.