Pantheon AI data centre to power itself with renewables in Croatia

Pantheon Atlas LLC announced the development of Pantheon AI in Topusko, Croatia, which aims to solve a structural capacity gap in Europe — where surging AI-driven demand for data centre capacity has outpaced available power, land, and construction resources.

The hub will be designed in accordance with NVIDIA GW-Scale AI factory standards and is hoped to bring more than €50 billion ($58.5 billion) in total investment to the central European nation.

Construction of the €12 billion ($14 billion) campus is set to begin early 2027 and it will be fully operational by the first quarter of 2029. 

According to Pantheon in a release, the hub represents the largest investment in Croatian history and among the largest private US investments in Europe.

Power sufficiency

The project is being run by Pantheon Atlas LLC, a transatlantic investment vehicle through which a group of US institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals are deploying capital into the project. Its development will be carried out by a consortium of partners.

Four dedicated 400kV transmission lines will connect the campus directly to Croatia’s national grid via the SS Topusko substation (400 /(220)/(110)/33 kV). Končar Group, a Croatian electrical and energy company, will support the development of the purpose-built substation, while Dalekovod Projekt will lead transmission design and Ravel will lead substation design.

The grid connections run in two directions: east-west toward Slovenia, Hungary, and Austria and north-south toward southern Croatia and Italy. 

The campus will also feature an on-site 500MW solar plant with 2,000MW (8,000MWh) battery storage, developed by Greenvolt International Power, with a goal of running entirely on renewable energy. 

Through these initiatives, Pantheon says the new hub will enable integration of up to 5.2GW of renewable energy onto Croatia’s power grid.

Commenting in a release was Jako Andabak, Founding Partner at Pantheon AI: "Pantheon AI is a signal to the world that Croatia is open for the highest-caliber investment. 

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"This project is the culmination of years of work to bring world-class digital infrastructure to Croatia, and we have assembled the deep local expertise, grid relationships, and regulatory groundwork required to meet demand for data centre capacity.”

Said Ryan Rich, Managing Partner of Pantheon AI: “We have lined up the power, fiber, regulatory stability, and institutional support to solve that problem in Europe, and we will establish Croatia and Central Europe as a premier destination for world-class digital infrastructure."

Pantheon’s AI’s launch comes as Europe’s data centres, driven primarily by AI, are expanding in both scale and geography, accompanied by power and grid challenge.

Indeed, Pantheon AI says that Europe's established data centre hubs are operating below 8% vacancy, with significant grid connection delays compounding the pressure. 

Additionally, according to a report released earlier this year by the European Data Centre Association, since 2023, European IT power capacity has grown from 10,539MW to 14,784MW in 2025, with further cumulative investments of €176 billion ($205.9 billion) expected between 2026 and 2031.

Drivers for the sector’s growth include accelerating digitalisation across sectors, the rapid expansion and uptake of AI and the demand for a sovereign infrastructure, with data centres being recognised as a ‘strategic infrastructure’.

The report, which draws on input from members, finds that the traditional Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin (FLAP-D) markets remain essential to the sector. 

But the growth also is moving away from this hub-centric approach towards a distributed ecosystem in regions with abundant renewable energy and favourable climate and other operating conditions, such as strong international connectivity.