What Nation Data Center does

Nation Data Center (NDC) is a French sovereign data center operator and IT hosting provider, wholly owned by Groupe Altarea, a French conglomerate focused on low-carbon urban transformation. The company designs, builds, and operates data centers in major French metropolitan areas, with NDC Rennes 1 (3,000 m² site, Tier 3 design, 99.99% availability) and NDC Rennes 2 (1.36 MW) currently operational, and NDC Rouen (14 MW dedicated to ultra-high-density liquid cooling for AI) and NDC Paris 1 in Vélizy-Villacoublay (7 MW hybrid air/liquid, with heat recovery to a nearby student residence) under development for 2027 delivery. The product portfolio spans colocation and private cages, ultra-high-density liquid and immersion cooling, meet-me-room connectivity, hands-and-eyes on-site support, and office space, with a stated roadmap to 15 data centers across France by 2030.

Underlying technology centers on energy efficiency and high-density compute: free cooling in N+2 configuration, direct liquid cooling and immersion cooling for AI workloads, no water consumption in cooling, waste heat recovery into urban district heating, and a target PUE of 1.2. Defense-in-depth physical security includes 24/7 on-site guards, CCTV, high-security fencing, perimeter intrusion detection, single-person airlocks, and ANSSI-compliant two-factor biometric authentication. The company is pursuing ISO 27001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001, HDS (French health data hosting), and the European Code of Conduct certifications; NDC Rennes 1 is already certified to the European Code of Conduct.

The business model is B2B recurring colocation and hosting, priced on a custom quote basis per kW/MW of IT power consumed and m² of space, with no public pricing tiers. Go-to-market is direct enterprise field sales targeting organizations with sovereignty, security, and sustainability requirements — including regulated industries (finance, healthcare) and AI/GPU compute customers — supported by content marketing, LinkedIn, Vimeo property tours, and industry events such as European Cyber Week. Geographic footprint is currently domestic France (Brittany, Normandy, Île-de-France), with no international presence.

Name

Nation Data Center

Legal name

NATION DATA CENTER

Website

https://nationdatacenter.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Nation Data Center is a French sovereign data center operator and IT hosting provider, subsidiary of Groupe Altarea, offering colocation, liquid-cooled AI capacity, and eco-responsible facilities to enterprise and regulated-industry customers across major French metropolitan areas.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Data Center Colocation Services

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Computer Facilities Management Services (541513)

SIC

Services-Facilities Support Management Services (8744)

akta.pro primary industry

Enterprise Data Centers & On-Prem Facilities (Owned/Operated) (HDABACAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Data Center Operations & Managed Services (Remote Hands, NOC/SOC) (HDABANAA), Data Center Construction (New Build Shell/Core & Fit-Out) (IMAFAIAG)

Keywords

• Data center colocation
• Sovereign cloud hosting
• Liquid cooling infrastructure
• IT infrastructure services
• Eco-responsible hosting

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Data Center Colocation and Hosting Services: Nation Data Center generates revenue through providing IT hosting services including colocation (shared rack space), private cage hosting, and dedicated infrastructure solutions. Revenue is recurring based on the power capacity (kW/MW) and space (m²) consumed by customer equipment, plus additional services such as hands-and-eyes support and office space rental.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Nation Data Center designs, builds, and operates sovereign French data center facilities providing colocation, private cage, dedicated hosting, and ultra-high-density liquid-cooled rack space for enterprise IT and AI workloads. Beyond space and power, it offers connectivity via meet-me-rooms, hands-and-eyes technical support, and office space, all priced on a customized, recurring basis tied to consumed capacity.

Product overview

Nation Data Center is a sovereign and eco-responsible French IT hosting provider offering a network of data center facilities across France. The product portfolio comprises four named data center facilities (NDC Rouen, NDC Rennes 1, NDC Rennes 2, and NDC Paris 1 in Vélizy), complemented by core hosting services including colocation/housing, connectivity via meet-me-rooms, hands-and-eyes technical support, and office spaces. The facilities support various hosting configurations from standard colocation to ultra-high density racks with liquid cooling, targeting enterprises requiring sovereign, secure, and environmentally responsible data center services. The company plans to develop 15 data centers by 2030 as part of its expansion strategy.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Target PUE of 1.2 (energy efficiency indicator)
• +2 more outcomes

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• Silvio d'Ascia ArchitectureminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerArchitecture firm that designed NDC Paris 1 in collaboration with Egis for Nation Data Center.
• EgisminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerEngineering consultancy that collaborated with Silvio d'Ascia Architecture for the design of NDC Paris 1.
• IF Architectes (Cogedim)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIF Architectes designed the student residence adjacent to NDC Paris 1, enabling heat recovery from the data center to provide heating for the residence.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves9 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Scaleway: French cloud provider (Iliad Group) operating its own data centers in France and the Netherlands. Like NDC, Scaleway sells sovereign, EU-based compute and storage, and competes for the same French enterprise and regulated workloads.
• IELO: French hosting and data center operator offering colocation, dedicated servers, and cloud services with sovereign positioning. IELO is a comparable French sovereign-hosting competitor targeting similar mid-market and enterprise customers.
• Data4: French/European data center operator with a multi-MW colocation footprint across France (Paris, Lyon, Marseille) and beyond. Data4 is a direct competitor to NDC on French sovereign colocation, with comparable Tier III+ facilities and enterprise customer overlap.
• OVHcloud: French cloud and hosting provider headquartered in Roubaix. OVHcloud is the most direct sovereign-French competitor to Nation Data Center, combining data center operations with cloud services and explicitly marketing French/EU data residency and SecNumCloud-aligned offerings.

Broad incumbents

• Orange Business / Orange Cyberdefense: Orange's enterprise division operates data centers in France and offers sovereign cloud and hosting services. It competes with NDC for French public-sector and regulated enterprise workloads, leveraging Orange's telecom backbone and trusted-operator status.
• Equinix: Global colocation and interconnection leader with multiple IBX data centers in the Paris metro (and elsewhere in France). Equinix competes with NDC for French enterprise colocation, especially for interconnection-rich workloads, but at much larger scale and with a global footprint.
• Telehouse: KDDI-owned global data center operator with a long-established Paris presence (Telehouse Voltaire, etc.). It is a broad incumbent competing for French enterprise and carrier-neutral colocation against NDC.
• Digital Realty: Global data center operator with French presence (including via Interxion acquisition, e.g., Paris campuses). Digital Realty competes for French sovereign and enterprise colocation customers, with a broader portfolio and scale advantage over NDC.
• Cogent Communications / Colt Data Centre Services: Colt DCS operates hyperscale and enterprise data centers across Europe including Paris. It competes with NDC for French enterprise and hyperscale-adjacent colocation, with greater scale and a more international customer base.

Emerging players

• Exoscale (A1 Digital / greenDatacenter): European (Swiss/Austrian-rooted) sovereign cloud and data center provider now under A1 Digital. Exoscale is comparable to NDC in marketing sovereign, EU-based compute and storage to mid-market and regulated European customers.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/nation-data-center-groupe-altarea

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Nation Data Center