Scaleway — DC5 (PAR2) AI Hub

Scaleway’s DC5 (PAR2) is a flagship AI and high-performance computing (HPC) facility located in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, northwest of Paris. It is one of Europe’s most significant sovereign AI compute hubs — purpose-built for ultra-high-density GPU workloads and distinguished by its sustainability design.

The facility houses “Nabu,” a French-operated NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD containing 1,016 H100 SXM GPUs interconnected with NVLink and InfiniBand at full bisection bandwidth. Nabu represents one of the largest single GPU supercomputers in France and supports large-scale AI training and model fine-tuning for Scaleway customers, including French enterprises, research institutions, and AI startups. Named after the Babylonian god of knowledge, Nabu reflects Scaleway’s positioning of DC5 as a seat of French AI capability.

DC5’s thermal design is architecturally distinctive. The facility uses adiabatic cooling — a system that passes outside air through wet pads to achieve evaporative cooling — rather than conventional mechanical air conditioning. This approach achieves a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of approximately 1.15, making it among the most efficient data centers in Europe. The design is particularly suited to the Île-de-France climate, where ambient temperatures are cool enough for most of the year to make mechanical cooling unnecessary for moderate rack densities.

Scaleway is the cloud subsidiary of Iliad Group — the French telecom conglomerate founded by Xavier Niel that also operates Free and Free Mobile. Iliad/Scaleway is one of France’s primary sovereign cloud providers, holding France’s only SecNumCloud-qualified (ANSSI-certified) cloud infrastructure alongside OVHcloud. SecNumCloud certification is required for certain French government and defense AI workloads, making DC5 a critical piece of France’s AI sovereignty stack.

The facility serves French AI startups in the Paris ecosystem (Station F community, BPI France-backed AI ventures), research institutions including Inria and CNRS, and enterprise AI workloads requiring French data residency under GDPR and national security requirements. Scaleway offers GPU-as-a-service at competitive pricing compared to hyperscalers, positioning DC5 as the affordable high-performance AI option for European developers.

Hardware: 1,016 NVIDIA H100 SXM GPUs (Nabu SuperPOD) · PUE: ~1.15 · Cooling: Adiabatic (no traditional HVAC) · Energy: 100% renewable electricity (French nuclear + hydro mix)