Pantheon Atlas plans €50B AI campus

Pantheon Atlas said on April 28 that it plans to build a €50 billion artificial-intelligence data-center and innovation campus in Topusko, Croatia. (businesswire.com) The project, called Pantheon AI, was announced in Dubrovnik during the Three Seas Initiative Summit on Tuesday, April 28, with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in attendance. (capacityglobal.com) (mvep.gov.hr) Pantheon Atlas says the campus is being designed for 1 gigawatt of total capacity and 800 megawatts of usable information-technology load, with construction due to start in early 2027 and full operations targeted for the first quarter of 2029. (capacityglobal.com) (pantheonai.com) A data center is a warehouse full of computers; an artificial-intelligence data center packs in far more chips and power gear than a typical cloud site. Pantheon Atlas says this one will follow NVIDIA’s gigawatt-scale AI factory design standards, which are built for training and running large AI models. (businesswire.com) (telecompaper.com) The site is planned on 310 acres, expandable to 450 acres, about 45 minutes from Zagreb. Pantheon Atlas says Sisak-Moslavina County has classified the development as a project of special regional importance. (capacityglobal.com) Power is the core of the pitch. Pantheon Atlas says the campus will use an on-site 500 megawatt solar plant and 8,000 megawatt-hours of battery storage, with four independent 400-kilovolt transmission lines tied into Croatia’s grid. (capacityglobal.com) (pv-tech.org) (pantheonai.com) The company says that grid setup could also support the integration of up to 5.2 gigawatts of new renewable generation into Croatia’s national system. Greenvolt International Power, majority-owned by KKR, has signed a letter of intent tied to the energy buildout, according to Capacity. (businesswire.com) (capacityglobal.com) Connectivity is the second part of the sales pitch. Pantheon Atlas says the campus will have four independent fiber routes across three European Union corridors, with the GreenMed subsea cable expected to extend reach to Milan by 2028. (capacityglobal.com) The company is pitching Croatia as an answer to a European bottleneck: too little powered land for new data centers in the region’s established hubs. Pantheon Atlas says major European markets are running below 8% vacancy, while Central and Eastern Europe still lacks a gigawatt-scale AI-optimized facility. (businesswire.com) (capacityglobal.com) Pantheon Atlas says the project would create 3,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs once the campus is complete. It is also describing the development as the largest investment in Croatian history and one of the largest private U.S. investments in Europe. (capacityglobal.com) (businesswire.com) For now, Pantheon AI is still a plan, not a finished financing package or a built campus. If Pantheon Atlas can line up tenants, permits, power equipment, and construction on its stated schedule, Topusko would become one of Europe’s biggest visible bets on AI infrastructure by 2029. (businesswire.com) (capacityglobal.com)