DDN and Polarise Forge Alliance to Deliver Sustainable AI Factories for Europe
In a move aimed squarely at reshaping the European AI landscape, DDN, a global powerhouse in AI data intelligence, has announced a strategic partnership with Polarise, a rising force in sovereign AI infrastructure. The goal? Build high-performance, energy-efficient, and sovereign AI factories across Europe—starting with Germany and Norway.
For an industry sprinting toward ever-larger models and tighter regulatory demands, this partnership hits a crucial trifecta: speed, sovereignty, and sustainability.
Europe’s Answer to AI Infrastructure, Reimagined
Unlike the hyperscaler-first approach that dominates in the U.S. and Asia, this collaboration proposes a European alternative—one where data control, green energy, and regional innovation intersect.
“This is about democratizing access to responsible AI infrastructure,” said Paul Bloch, President and Co-Founder of DDN. “We’re combining our enterprise-proven AI data platform with Polarise’s forward-thinking AI factory model to help organizations build ambitious AI projects—without compromise.”
Polarise’s playbook? Turnkey AI factories designed around NVIDIA’s reference architecture, with options for colocation, private cloud, or direct API access. Powered by renewable energy, equipped with heat reuse systems, and optimized for low-carbon deployments, their infrastructure feels custom-built for the new AI age.
What’s Actually on Offer
The joint solution is more than just a handshake. It combines deep tech and real estate to offer a serious, sovereign alternative to hyperscaler AI platforms:
- DDN’s AI Data Platform: Enterprise-grade storage optimized for NVIDIA DGX, AI training, inference, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Think petabytes of throughput at blazing speeds.
- Polarise’s Modular AI Factories: AI-specific datacenters with NVIDIA acceleration, scalable cloud delivery, and tailored access options for enterprise and academic use cases.
- Shared Sustainability Focus: Cooling, power, and infrastructure decisions grounded in renewable energy, intelligent design, and community integration.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s live—and already operational in Germany and Norway, with more countries in the pipeline for 2025.
Why This Partnership Matters Now
Europe’s AI push has been gaining momentum, but it’s often limited by access to scalable, compliant infrastructure that respects local data laws and environmental expectations. With EU AI regulations tightening and demand for sovereign compute rising, DDN and Polarise are offering a compelling new option for organizations who want to train or deploy AI without shipping their data to another continent.
The timing is savvy. NVIDIA-powered systems are becoming table stakes in enterprise AI, and while cloud titans like AWS and Azure are investing heavily in European datacenters, the focus is still on general-purpose infrastructure. DDN + Polarise, on the other hand, are focused purely on AI-first, European-native infrastructure—giving them a clear edge in regulatory alignment and workload-specific performance.
Sovereignty Meets Sustainability
The “green AI” angle is more than a press release flourish. Polarise’s facilities prioritize heat reuse, water-free cooling, and renewable energy sourcing—not because it sounds good, but because it’s increasingly demanded by enterprise ESG mandates and EU environmental policies.
This positions the partnership well in an environment where AI carbon footprints are under scrutiny, and organizations are under pressure to build not just powerful AI, but accountable AI.
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