The World’s Cleanest Nations That Power AI Data Centers
A little more than a year ago, it appeared that data center companies could build a facility anywhere they wanted. The huge AI companies that need these centers began thinking big, or rather, huge. Meta, the owner of Facebook, plans a data center in Louisiana that will cover six square miles. Meta calls it “Hyperion.” Part of it will come online in the next few years, but it will not be completed until 2032. The total cost will be $10 billion.
Recently, and mostly since the start of this year, towns and counties have begun blocking construction of these centers. A HeatMap News survey found that about 75% of Americans do not want a data center near their homes. As a result, plans to build $260 billion worth of data centers have collapsed. The Information reports more than 500 active temporary or permanent bans or restrictions on data centers.
The issue appeared on ballots this year in cities, towns, counties, and states, and even in House and Senate elections. It became such a pressing concern that it is now a major part of many politicians’ platforms.
Despite the resistance, however, data centers are not going away. Clearview, which tracks them, reports that most of the centers under construction or planned will support the AI industry. Its most recent data show 707 data centers planned, 278 under construction, and 560 already operating. The industry’s construction plans remain staggering: Bank of America forecasts that worldwide data center investment will reach $2.1 trillion in 2028.
If centers are blocked, what are the options? One is to build them in areas with almost no population, but electricity may not be available there. Builders would have to install their own generators, powered by fossil fuels, solar, wind, or nuclear energy, and building those could add months or years to a project. Elon Musk proposes another alternative: data centers in space. NPR reported that Musk announced that SpaceX, which recently merged with his artificial intelligence company xAI, would put data centers into orbit around the Earth.
One issue that is both local and national is where the electricity for these centers will come from. Natural gas generates most of the electricity in the US, and some plants still burn coal. As demand for electricity surges, fossil fuels will almost certainly play a major part in meeting it.
ClimateCrisis247 wanted to know where data centers could be built with the least environmental impact. As usual, we used CO2 as our measure of pollution.
What makes one country’s power cleaner than another’s? The answer is the CO2 emissions of its grid, which depend on how its electricity is generated. Low-carbon sources, such as renewables and nuclear, produce less carbon than coal or natural gas. A grid that runs on hydropower, nuclear, or wind therefore emits far less than one that runs on coal or natural gas. Our primary measure was grams of CO2 emitted per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity, a kilowatt-hour being the amount of energy used by a one-kilowatt load running for one hour. This means the same AI data center would have a different carbon footprint in each country where it was located.
To begin our analysis, we used a September 2026 study by TRG Datacenters, which limited its ranking to the 53 countries with at least 20 operating data centers listed by Data Center Map. For energy sources, we used Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2025. This data gave us three measures for each country:
- Grams of CO2 released per kWh of electricity
- The share of electricity from low-carbon sources (renewables plus nuclear)
- The share of electricity from renewables alone
The World’s Cleanest Places to Power AI Data Centers, Ranked
| Rank | Country | Grid emissions (g CO2/kWh) | Power from low-carbon sources | Power from renewables | Data centers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norway | 28 | 99.0% | 99.0% | 92 |
| 2 | Sweden | 35 | 98.8% | 71.2% | 110 |
| 3 | Switzerland | 39 | 97.7% | 67.8% | 114 |
| 4 | France | 41 | 94.9% | 26.1% | 346 |
| 5 | Finland | 57 | 96.3% | 56.5% | 105 |
| 6 | New Zealand | 93 | 88.5% | 88.5% | 60 |
| 7 | Brazil | 110 | 88.7% | 86.6% | 204 |
| 8 | Denmark | 114 | 91.2% | 91.2% | 82 |
| 9 | Austria | 117 | 83.6% | 83.6% | 53 |
| 10 | Portugal | 128 | 81.0% | 81.0% | 45 |
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