Booming Data Economy: Brussels Regulates Innovation to Death | The American Spectator

In the United States, the data economy is undergoing a boom reminiscent of the industrial startup era. Whether it’s Amazon, Microsoft, or Google — America is pouring massive investments into the infrastructure of tomorrow’s economy. Brussels, by contrast, is expanding its regulatory catalog.

In Louisiana, the world’s largest data center is set to be built in the coming years: Meta (formerly Facebook) plans to launch a massive AI computing facility by 2030 under the name “Project Hyperion” with a total compute capacity of 3,200 ExaFlops. One exaflop equals one quintillion floating-point operations per second — a billion billion calculations per second (10¹⁸ FLOPS). For comparison: a modern laptop handles a few trillion (teraflops), meaning an exaflop system is about a million times more powerful.

On a site covering 2,000 hectares near Richland Parish, the facility’s power demand is expected to ramp up to five gigawatts. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the area will cover roughly a quarter of Manhattan — a mega-project that has already swallowed up to $10 billion in investment.

Meta is also developing additional AI clusters, such as “Prometheus,” to boost capacity for its so-called “Superintelligence Labs.”  Hyperion and Prometheus form the backbone of Meta’s strategy to outpace competitors like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic — an all-American rivalry. A new era of entrepreneurialism has dawned in the U.S., centered on the raw material of the next economy: data, and the systems that manage it.

America in Pole Position

Open markets and a pro-innovation regulatory framework have set the powerful American investment machine in motion. Once moving, it’s hard to match its pace. Current estimates suggest that roughly 5,400 U.S. data centers may offer between 30 and 50 exaflops of total compute capacity. While exact figures are not yet available, projections based on systems like the world’s current most powerful supercomputer, “El Capitan” with 1.7 exaflops, offer solid benchmarks.

Annual power consumption of U.S. data centers is currently estimated at 224 terawatt-hours (TWh). In response to exploding data flows, the U.S. has unleashed an investment surge and secured pole position in the international race. Hyperion alone is set to deliver a staggering 3,200 exaflops in just a few years. Over 50 percent of the world’s computing capacity is now “Made in USA” — a strategic asset in a future where data infrastructure will play a pivotal role in creating and distributing global wealth.

Data centers form the backbone of modern industry and value chains. They power banks, hospitals, and factories — 24/7. A modern economy without them is unimaginable: payment systems, logistics, power markets, communication — today’s productivity no longer stems from machines alone. AI data streams, cloud storage, and connected systems boost efficiency across all sectors.

Key technologies of the near future — autonomous driving, fully automated factories, AI diagnostics — are particularly data-intensive.

The U.S. put spurs to the horse early on. During Donald Trump’s first term, regulatory hurdles were proactively dismantled. That deregulatory courage is now paying dividends.

Europe’s Mirror Image

Europe tells a different story. With 2–4 exaflops of installed capacity, European data centers make up just 15 percent of the global market. Germany leads Europe with 529 centers, followed by the UK with 523. Despite a 9 percent growth rate, the capacity gap with the U.S. is widening. We are witnessing one of the most dynamic markets in economic history.

Here, regulatory hurdles act like slamming the brakes, while competitors operate on open terrain with freedom to grow.

You can’t expect a bountiful harvest if you pave over your fields before sowing or ration your seeds. But that is precisely what the EU is doing with the data economy. Brussels — global champion of regulation — has ensured that the infrastructure of tomorrow’s economy, dependent on scalable data systems, is developing elsewhere — chiefly in the United States.

Climate-Conscious Computing

While the U.S. and China race ahead to build the digital infrastructure of the future, Europe is busy debating rooftop gardens and emissions targets for its data centers. Brussels seems to have missed the geopolitical and highly competitive nature of this sector.

Once again, EU regulators moved faster than the market could even create a viable product to regulate. Frameworks like the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) give the impression that Brussels seeks to slow down the American boom rather than offer investment-friendly alternatives of its own.

Let’s be honest: consumer protection and data security are not even secondary considerations for the Brussels bureaucracy. In truth, Europe has already conceded its technological disadvantage — and now it’s hitting the regulatory brakes.

It is doubtful U.S. tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google, or X will be deterred by Brussels’ hostility. They have U.S. President Trump on their side — and his administration has already warned it would intervene if Europe’s digital regulations become overly aggressive.

Europe’s Digital Strategy Is a Rearguard Action

Instead of giving the economy room to build capacity, Brussels delivers a barrage of petty regulations that weigh down the market like lead. The updated EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) has, since last year, required operators of large data centers to produce comprehensive sustainability reports. These must detail electricity use, share of renewables, water demand, waste heat use, rooftop greening — a grotesque level of red tape for a sector that was supposed to drive efficiency across the economy.

From a U.S. perspective, the result of this regulatory overreach is favorable: American providers now dominate 80 percent of the European cloud market. Technologically, Europe is falling behind as well: emerging opportunities like edge computing, ARM-based servers, or modular micro-data centers remain largely untapped.

The bureaucratic storm is, unsurprisingly, rooted in the EU’s climate agenda: by 2030, Brussels aims to cut CO₂ emissions by 55 percent, and achieve net zero by 2050. Thus, the backbone of the future economy has been framed as an emissions problem.

Yet this infrastructure is fundamentally energy-hungry — and needs enormous quantities of power. A single AI model can consume millions of kilowatt-hours. Competing in this space requires energy, land, planning reliability — and physical infrastructure. But Europe — especially Germany — has effectively taken itself out of the race with its Green Deal and nuclear phase-out.

Data Centers as Power Projection

Beyond their economic function, data centers are growing in geopolitical importance. Those who control them shape data flows, set standards in digital communications, and dominate industrial processes. In hybrid conflicts, they become strategic targets.

Europe’s dependence on U.S. and Chinese tech is increasing. Security risks and vulnerability to cyberattacks render the continent structurally blackmailable — and these threats cannot be regulated away.

Berlin’s response? The founding of a new federal ministry — which only confirms what we already suspected: German politics is either unwilling or incapable of restraining Brussels’ regulatory obsession and unleashing its domestic potential in the data economy.

The creation of the Digital Ministry is an act of quiet resignation — a routine gesture of helplessness — while the world beyond Europe’s climate utopia is forging ahead, and the EU remains paralyzed, unable to retract its bureaucratic claws.

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