Uniper, the German energy giant that Berlin rescued from collapse three years ago, is betting its next chapter on the server racks now reshaping Europe’s power market.
The utility plans to invest around €5bn ($5.7bn) by 2030 in a strategy that pivots hard toward data centres, and toward the electricity they consume in ever greater quantities.
More than half of that money is earmarked for flexible power generation, weighted toward Germany, alongside renewables spread across Germany and the wider European market.
It is a deliberately hedged bet, pairing the gas-fired plants that can ramp up on demand with the wind and solar that regulators keep pushing utilities toward.
The appeal of data centres is easy enough to grasp. As AI models multiply, so does their appetite for electricity, and operators across the continent are scrambling to become the anchor suppliers for a surge that shows little sign of cooling. For a company whose entire business is generating and selling power, that is a customer worth reorganising around.
