The rise of artificial intelligence is changing the game for both businesses and data centers. Demand for power, computing density and cooling capacity is increasing, while businesses face growing requirements around availability, security, data sovereignty and energy efficiency.
In this context, colocation is no longer simply an alternative to operating an in-house data center. It is becoming a way to deploy critical infrastructure quickly and scale it in line with evolving needs, from enterprise IT to cloud and AI environments.
Why colocation is taking on a new dimension
Hosting equipment in a specialized data center makes it possible to share complex infrastructure, including power, cooling, security and connectivity, while limiting the investment required to build and operate an in-house facility.
Above all, the model provides flexibility. A few racks, a private cage, a dedicated room or an entire building: capacity can evolve according to project requirements.
In the age of AI, this ability to adapt is becoming critical. Here are eight criteria that make colocation a strategic enabler.
1. Resilience: ensuring the continuity of critical infrastructure
For mission-critical applications, availability is non-negotiable. Power, cooling, networking and monitoring rely on redundant architectures designed to minimize single points of failure.
Resilience also depends on operations. 24/7 monitoring, specialized teams, intervention procedures and service-level commitments all contribute to keeping infrastructure operational.
2. Efficiency: modernizing rather than rebuilding
A high-performance data center is not necessarily a newly built one. Retrofitting can modernize an existing facility: electrical and cooling systems, containment, equipment and energy management can all be optimized without starting from scratch.
This approach extends the lifetime of facilities while improving their efficiency. Metrics such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) help track energy performance, while Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) provides additional insight into water consumption.
These considerations are becoming particularly important as cooling requirements increase with AI workloads.
3. Cooling: scaling for AI
AI and HPC infrastructure concentrates more computing power within the same physical footprint. GPUs can therefore generate thermal loads that air cooling alone cannot always handle.
Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) brings coolant closer to the components, making it possible to manage higher power densities.
The goal, however, is not necessarily to replace air cooling with liquid cooling across the board. Infrastructure needs to be able to combine both technologies depending on the equipment, density requirements and evolution of system architectures.
4. Customization: adapting infrastructure to workloads
Colocation is not simply about renting square meters and kilowatts. Rack density, power distribution, redundancy, cooling, containment, security and operations all need to be adaptable to the project.
Connectivity is equally strategic. Access to multiple carriers, diverse network routes and interconnections with public cloud providers facilitates the deployment of hybrid and distributed architectures.
The data center thus becomes an anchor point connecting private infrastructure, cloud environments and networks.
5. Security: protecting equipment and operations
Access control, video surveillance, continuous monitoring and secured private areas provide the first layer of protection for critical infrastructure.
Physical security complements cybersecurity measures and access governance policies. The presence of on-site operational teams adds another layer of control, particularly when it comes to interventions and incident management.
6. Compliance: meeting increasingly specific requirements
Certifications and industry standards are now key criteria when selecting a data center.
For healthcare data, the French HDS certification framework sets requirements relating in particular to security, confidentiality and availability. In cloud environments, a colocation infrastructure can also support the delivery of services designed to meet SecNumCloud requirements.
7. Europe: sovereignty also depends on infrastructure
The location of digital infrastructure has become a strategic issue. Deploying capacity in Europe can bring infrastructure closer to users while placing it within the European regulatory framework.
But sovereignty is not simply about the address of a data center. It also encompasses operational control, security, governance and the ability to evolve infrastructure over time.
For European projects, having a network of campuses across several countries can facilitate the deployment of distributed architectures and provide access to different digital ecosystems.
8. Scalability: supporting growth that is not always predictable
Requirements can change rapidly. A few racks can become a private cage and then a dedicated room. Conversely, cloud or AI projects may require significant capacity from the outset.
A campus designed for growth can support these different trajectories through power reserves, available land, connectivity and expansion capabilities.
This modularity avoids having to redesign the entire infrastructure at every stage of growth and makes it possible to progressively integrate new generations of servers and cooling technologies.
Infrastructure that evolves as quickly as workloads
Colocation has evolved significantly. It now serves the needs of critical IT infrastructure as well as cloud, HPC and AI environments.
Its value lies in balancing several factors: availability, density, connectivity, security, energy efficiency and scalability.
With AI, this equation is becoming even more demanding. Data centers need to deliver more power while managing resource consumption and their environmental footprint.
Choosing a colocation provider is therefore increasingly about more than selecting a location to host servers. It means choosing infrastructure that can evolve alongside technology, energy constraints and tomorrow’s digital workloads, while meeting environmental requirements.
To discover more about our approach and commitments, read the [Data4 2025 CSR Report].
