Gibraltar’s £1.8bn Data Centre: What’s Planned, What’s Disputed and What It Means for Local Businesses

If you’ve opened a Gibraltar news feed lately, you’ll have seen the name Pelagos. It’s the company behind a planned £1.8 billion, 250MW data centre in Gibraltar, on the North Mole near the port. The Government calls it the largest current development project on the Rock by value. Tomorrow, Saturday 7 November, a demonstration in Casemates will take aim at it, among other things.

I live across the Bay in La Línea and work with data for a living, so I’ve been reading everything I can find. Here’s what’s actually planned, what people are arguing about, and what it means (and doesn’t mean) for local businesses.

The short version

• Planned: a 250MW campus in five 50MW phases on a 20,000 m² site near the Port of Gibraltar. It’s privately funded and backed by the Government of Gibraltar.
• Not yet: no planning application has been submitted. Pelagos says the documents will be published in the coming weeks, and construction is hoped to start in 2027.
• Disputed: environmental groups object over heat, the Bay, marine life, noise and transparency. A petition has passed 1,800 signatures.

What is Pelagos planning?

Pelagos Data Centres announced the project on 4 September 2025 at the Chief Minister’s offices. The plan is up to 250MW of capacity by 2033, built in five modular phases roughly 18 months apart. It’s designed to Tier III standard (the Uptime Institute’s rating for high availability), carrier-neutral, and aimed at public and private sector customers running AI, high-density computing and hybrid cloud.

The price tag is around £1.8 billion ($2.24bn). Sir Joe Bossano called it the most significant infrastructure investment in Gibraltar since the early 1990s. Pelagos, which has about 50 staff in London and Gibraltar, says it will create up to 500 construction jobs and around 100 permanent roles, plus a public park with seating and Wi-Fi on site.

Power was the eye-catching part: the campus would run independently of Gibraltar’s grid. The 2025 announcement described a mix of renewables and liquefied natural gas (LNG), with net-zero operational emissions targeted by 2030 and a PUE of 1.2 or better. PUE (power usage effectiveness) compares the total power a site uses with the power its servers use. At 1.2, roughly 20% extra goes on cooling and everything else, and the lower the number, the better.

What about “live by late 2027”?

That was the original headline: first phase operational in late 2027. I’d pencil it in lightly. As of this week, the proposal hasn’t been submitted to the Government. GBC reports that construction could begin in 2027, subject to approvals, while Pelagos’s own website still shows January 2027 as the construction start. Breaking ground and going live in the same year would be brisk going, so watch the planning documents for a revised timeline.

Why people are objecting

The debate has got a lot louder over the past few weeks. The main concerns:

• Heat in the Bay. The Nautilus Project, a marine conservation charity, opposes the plans over seawater cooling. Its argument is that almost all the electricity a data centre uses ends up as heat: around 250MW at full capacity, which it says is about three times the capacity of the North Mole power station. It backed this up with 45 years of daily sea-surface temperature data for the Bay.
• Transparency and scrutiny. The Environmental Safety Group (ESG) backs an online petition calling for proper transparency, scrutiny and independent assessment, including of health impacts on nearby residents.
• Power supply. Sir Joe Bossano told Parliament earlier this year that the project would only be viable if Gibraltar can import electricity, and suggested an undersea cable to Morocco. How that fits with an off-grid design is one of the questions the planning documents will need to answer.
• Marine life. An independent survey recorded 1,388 Mediterranean ribbed limpets along the North Mole revetment next to the site. The limpets have not, as far as I know, been asked for comment.

What Pelagos says

On 5 November Pelagos responded publicly and said it welcomes the discussion. Its main points:

• No power would be drawn from Gibraltar’s grid. The site is expected to run on 100% renewable energy with on-site back-up generation, though it gave no further detail on the mix.
• The main cooling system is a closed loop, which it compares to a car radiator, so normal running needs no extra water. Supplementary cooling with recycled water would only kick in during sustained hot spells.
• Ecological specialists would remove, relocate and monitor any affected limpets.
• Noise from cooling plant and back-up generators would be contained within the building.
• Regular sustainability audits, and talks about reusing waste heat for community projects.

Both sides are telling a story with data

This is the bit that caught my eye. Nautilus is arguing with more than 16,000 days of satellite sea temperatures. Pelagos is arguing with PUE targets, limpet counts and job numbers. Neither set of numbers settles it on its own: a PUE figure doesn’t tell you where the heat goes, and 45 years of sea temperatures don’t tell you what one building would add.

The insight is in putting them together, and that’s what the planning and environmental documents should do. When they’re published, it’s worth reading the numbers yourself rather than the headlines about them. All data tells a story, but only if someone joins the dots.

What it means for local businesses

Short answer: nothing changes today. Slightly longer answer:

1. Don’t plan around it yet. There’s no planning application and no confirmed date. If you’re making hosting or cloud decisions now, make them on what exists.
2. Know what’s already here. Gibraltar already has data centres run by Continent 8 (inside the Rock), Gibtelecom and Gibfibre. If keeping data local matters to you, as it often does in iGaming and financial services, those are today’s options.
3. Know where your data lives. Which systems, which suppliers, which countries. You can’t weigh up a new local option if you don’t know what you’d be moving. My post on EU privacy rules has a simple starting list.
4. Check your own resilience. Nautilus pointed to seven Rock-wide power cuts in the first half of 2026. Whatever happens at the North Mole, make sure your backups don’t depend on one building staying lit, including your own office.
5. Keep an eye on jobs and training. Up to 500 construction roles, around 100 permanent ones, and a proposed training scheme for young Gibraltarians that Pelagos plans to discuss with the Government. Worth watching if you supply, recruit or train locally.

Where I can help

I’m a Power BI and data consultant based in La Línea, working with businesses and charities across the Costa del Sol and Gibraltar. I’m not taking sides on the planning question; that’s for Gibraltar to decide. What I can do is help you see your own data clearly: where it lives, which suppliers hold it and what a move would involve, in a report you can use whatever happens at the North Mole.

If that sounds useful, send me a message on WhatsApp.

This post is general information, not legal, planning or investment advice. The project has not yet been submitted for planning, so details may change as documents are published.

Quick answers

Where will the Gibraltar data centre be built?

On a 20,000 m² site at the North Mole, near the Port of Gibraltar.

Has it got planning permission?

No. As of 5 November 2026 the proposal had not been submitted to the Government. Pelagos says planning documents will be published in the coming weeks.

When will it open?

The original target was late 2027 for the first phase and 2033 for all five. Construction is now hoped to start in 2027, subject to approvals.

Will it use Gibraltar’s electricity?

Pelagos says no. It plans to generate its own power on site, separate from the Gibraltar grid.

Sources

Position as at 6 November 2026.

• Government of Gibraltar: press release 641/2025 (4 Sep 2025): investment, capacity, phases, power, PUE, Tier III, jobs, quotes.
• Pelagos Data Centres: five 50MW modules, construction timeline, public park, target customers.
• DCD: 250MW off-grid data center campus planned for Gibraltar: dollar cost and Gibraltar’s existing data centre operators.
• GBC: Data centre would not draw power from Gibraltar’s electricity grid, says Pelagos (5 Nov 2026): Pelagos’s response and construction timing.
• Gibraltar Chronicle: Pelagos responds to environmental concerns (5 Nov 2026): cooling, limpets, noise, planning status, petition, demonstration, Morocco cable.
• Gibraltar Chronicle: Nautilus Project opposes data centre plan over impact on Bay (2 Nov 2026): heat, sea temperature analysis, power cuts.
• company.gi: The Pelagos Data Centre Petition: ESG’s backing of the petition (23 Oct 2026).