Extreme heat stress-tests European data centers — again

An extreme heat wave swept across much of Western Europe on July 18 and 19, hitting some of the largest metropolitan areas such as Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris — which are also global data center hubs with hundreds of megawatts of capacity each. In the London area, temperatures at Heathrow Airport surpassed 40°C / 104°F to set an all-time record for the United Kingdom.

Other areas in the UK and continental Europe did not see new records only because of the heatwave in July 2019 that caused historical highs in Germany, France and the Netherlands, among other countries. Since most data centers in operation were built before 2019, this most recent heatwave either approached or surpassed design specifications for ambient operating temperatures.