Polarise plans to add roughly 150 megawatts of new AI capacity in Germany by the end of 2028 - Named “Hidden Champion” by the German AI Association

HÜRTH/DÜSSELDORF, November 12, 2026 - Polarise is expanding its AI capacity in Germany by around 150 megawatts by the end of 2028. To do so, Polarise is expanding its existing facilities and, in addition to its existing locations in Oslo and Munich, is building new AI factories in Bavaria, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia, which are either already planned or under construction. The first phase of the new capacity will be delivered as early as the beginning of 2027 and then significantly expanded over the course of the year, so that by the end of 2028, a total of around 150 megawatts of sovereign computing power will be brought online. In doing so, Polarise is contributing to the German federal government’s goals of at least fourfold increase in AI computing capacity in Germany by 2030. One hurdle along the way is long planning and construction times, as new construction projects on previously undeveloped land often take several years to become operational. Polarise therefore relies on existing buildings, where new capacity can be connected to the grid within months without sealing new land.

German AI Association Honors Polarise as a “Hidden Champion”

In the “Hidden Champion” category, the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband) honors members who, working behind the scenes, make a significant contribution to Germany as an AI hub and, by extension, to Europe’s digital sovereignty. At its general meeting in the AI Village in Hürth near Cologne, the association presented the award to Polarise for its rapid development of sovereign AI infrastructure that provides companies in Germany with access to computing power under European law.

“In Germany, ‘hidden champions’ are traditionally the companies upon which entire industries are built,” says Daniel Abbou, Managing Director of the German AI Association. “For AI, that means infrastructure, because without powerful and sovereign data centers, there can be no AI ‘Made in Germany.’ Polarise is building precisely this infrastructure - quickly and without sealing new land - making decisive progress in advancing Germany as an AI hub.”

The Backbone of Munich’s AI Factory

Polarise does not build new data centers on greenfield sites; instead, it sustainably transforms abandoned industrial and data center locations into AI factories. In Munich’s Tucherpark, the company has already converted a former bank data center in just six months - from planning to operation - and has been operating the site ever since. At the heart of this approach are Polarise’s modular AI Pods, self-contained data center units that are integrated into existing buildings. Cooling is provided by the nearby Eisbach River. In the future, the waste heat will be used to heat the surrounding neighborhood. Polarise provides the infrastructure for the Industrial AI Cloud here and also offers capacity for its own AI cloud. The expansion Polarise aims to achieve throughout Germany would mean roughly a tenfold increase in the capacity of the data center in Tucherpark.

Sovereign AI from a Single Source

Polarise covers the entire value chain of sovereign AI, from its own data centers and bare-metal GPU capacity to the Polarise AI Cloud, which the company launched in October along with the AI assistant “Rise” and the inference platform “Drive”. This enables customers to develop and operate AI using sensitive data in compliance with European law - all in one place.

“We want to be the company that Germany, as an AI hub, can rely on when it counts,” says Michel Boutouil, CEO of Polarise. “Our team took AI data centers from planning to operation in just a few months and, on top of that, launched our own cloud to ensure this computing power is truly available to organizations. This ‘Hidden Champion’ award belongs to everyone who made this possible - from the people who built the power and cooling systems, laid the cables, and wrote the code, to those who keep everything running behind the scenes. By the end of 2028, we’ll be ramping up our efforts and bringing approximately 150 megawatts of new AI capacity online in Germany. We’ve delivered - and we’ll do it again.”