(The Turkish Post) – Türkiye broke ground on Oct. 19 on a large data center complex outside Ankara, with Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır joining the ceremony. The Ankara data center is a joint venture between the Turkish contractor Rönesans Holding and the global operator Digital Realty.
The project is part of a push to build computing capacity in Türkiye as demand for artificial intelligence services grows. The first facility is designed for more than 22 megawatts of IT capacity, the power needed to run the servers behind cloud and AI systems.
The complex sits in the Başkent Organized Industrial Zone at Temelli, west of Ankara. An organized industrial zone (OIZ) is a serviced estate where the state groups factories and large facilities on shared infrastructure.
Ankara data center breaks ground
Kacır put the cost of the first phase at $450 million for basic infrastructure and building construction, with a further $900 million for cooling systems and IT equipment. The minister set out the full scope of the plan at the groundbreaking.
“Once all phases are complete, this facility will represent a fixed capital investment of $4.1 billion,” he said. He called data processing “the oil of the 21st century,” and said the Ankara data center would help place Türkiye among the countries that host large-scale computing rather than renting it abroad.
A $4.1 billion investment
The first phase carries the $450 million and $900 million figures, and later phases lift the total to the $4.1 billion the minister cited. The investment covers land works, the building shell, power, cooling and the computing equipment inside.
Rönesans Holding and Digital Realty plan a combined investment of more than $10 billion across Ankara and Istanbul, aiming for about 200 megawatts of data center capacity. Kacır said that figure would equal about one-fifth of the national goal.
Türkiye’s capacity goals
Türkiye’s 2026-2030 artificial intelligence action plan targets at least 1 gigawatt of installed data center capacity by 2030. The government frames that capacity as a base for domestic AI services, research and cloud hosting rather than reliance on servers abroad.
Officials have tied the target to a broader aim of keeping data, and the money spent to process it, inside the country. The Ankara data center and the planned Istanbul sites are presented as early steps toward the 2030 goal.
GPU for Everyone program
Kacır said the state would widen access to the specialized processors that train and run AI models. “We will facilitate access to high-performance chips for entrepreneurs and researchers through the ‘GPU for Everyone’ program,” he said.
The chips, known as graphics processing units, are in short supply worldwide. The groundbreaking came as demand for AI chips drives record results across the semiconductor industry and a global race to build computing capacity.
Partners in the project
Rönesans Holding, based in Ankara, is one of Türkiye’s largest contractors, with projects across Europe and Central Asia. Its honorary president, Erman Ilıcak, attended the groundbreaking.
Digital Realty runs data centers in more than 25 countries and leases space and power to cloud providers and large companies. Paula Cogan, its managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also attended.
Incentives through 2030
The Ankara data center fits a wider incentive drive. Türkiye’s HIT-30 program offers $30 billion in incentives through 2030 for priority technology investment, including a $1.4 billion call for data centers of at least 30 megawatts and a $1.6 billion call for artificial intelligence.
Officials want the incentives to draw foreign operators and Turkish firms alike into building capacity at home. Construction at the Ankara site is set to proceed in phases toward the $4.1 billion total.
