Every generation builds the infrastructure that carries its economy. And in doing so, every generation decides which towns grow with it and which are left behind.
In the 19th century it was the railway. Towns with a station saw their population double; towns without one lost workshops and workers. In the 20th century it was power grids, motorways and large power plants. Here, too, the rule applied: sites with a connection grew. Industry moved to where electricity was reliably available.
In Philippsburg, the nuclear power plant supplied a considerable share of the electricity for four decades for the economy of Baden-Württemberg. And the town grew with it: workers, engineers and specialists moved in, new residential districts were built, the municipal budget found its tax base. Until 2020, when energy policy changed course and the cooling towers came down.
Railway
A connection to the rail network decided on workshops, markets and growth.
Electricity & motorway
Large power plants and trunk roads shaped industrial locations for decades.
Philippsburg I & II
For four decades a considerable share of the electricity for BW. The town grew with it.
Data centres
Computing power and fibre optics carry the next generation of the economy.
What stays, what changes
Today it is data centres, and the fibre-optic lines that connect them, that take on this role. What links both infrastructures, the old and the new, is not obvious at first glance: both need the same type of site. A place with a powerful grid connection, sufficient space, good transport links and qualified specialists in the region. Exactly what Philippsburg has built up over the past decades: an industrial tradition, a well-established regional pool of specialists and an extra-high-voltage connection that is already in place from the nuclear power plant and can continue to be used.
Specifically: the 380 kV switchgear bay of TransnetBW, which fed the electricity from the nuclear power plant into the grid for four decades, is still there. It is now used in the other direction, as a connection through which the site draws electricity for the computers. A power outlet becomes a power inlet. The substance remains, its function is reversed.
Computing power is the new raw material. And data centres are the new refineries.- Dr. Karsten Wildberger, Federal Minister for Digital Affairs · Bundestag, 16 April 2026
Professions that drive growth
Like the nuclear power plant in the 1970s and 80s, data centres also need qualified specialists. Not primarily construction workers, even though the construction phase spans several years, but professions that are needed permanently at the site:
On top of this come contracts for regional construction, civil engineering, electrical and logistics companies during the construction phase lasting several years, an economic multiplier that reaches beyond the site itself and has an effect on the whole region.
The question is not whether but where
These buildings are being built because our economy does not work without them. The question we face is not whether Germany gets more data centres, but where. In Frankfurt, sites are scarce, and so is electricity. Rents and waiting lists show it. Anyone who has suitable conditions in this situation has an opportunity that other towns do not have.
Philippsburg has these conditions. And this is a decision that is being made today, not tomorrow, because the demand will arise in the next few years, not in the next few decades.
A different chapter, not a second nuclear power plant
A data centre is not a power plant. It does not generate electricity, it consumes it. It does not split atoms, it moves data. It has no emergency zones, no radiological monitoring, no 30-kilometre safety radii.
What it does share with the nuclear power plant are the site requirements: a powerful grid connection, access to water for cooling, sufficient space, good transport links. And it shares the promise that industrial investment at the site creates value for decades, through contracts, jobs and trade tax.
There is more on the technology in the first article, “What is a data centre”, and more on heat in the second article, “What happens to the heat”.