Europe · country profile
Data centres and AI in Iceland, ranked against Europe and the US
Iceland ranks 1st of 31 European countries for lowest-carbon grid (28 gCO2e/kWh, 2025); its weakest is 18th of 24 for most TOP500 supercomputing power (10.5 PF, 2026/06). Data centres use about 3.09% of its electricity (Orkustofnun, 2024). It is not an EU member, so it cannot host an EU AI Factory (role: Antenna). Sources: Eurostat, Ember, EuroHPC, TOP500, Epoch AI; data as of 2026-10-12.
Updated 12 October 2026 · data build 2026-10-10 · how we know · corrections
Where Iceland ranks among 31 European countries
Rank 1 = best on the measure's own terms (cheapest, lowest carbon, highest share, most). Each rank is among the European countries with a figure, so the "of" number differs. Iceland is not an EU member. Measured
No figure for Iceland on: Big-user electricity price; Wholesale power, last 12 months; Businesses using AI; People using generative AI; EU AI Factories hosted; Share of EU server imports (several EU series cover members only).
Download CSV ↓Source: Ember yearly electricity data (CC BY 4.0) · Orkustofnun, Iceland's energy authority, ROS-3-2026 Raforkunotkun 2024 · TOP500, June 2026 list (via eu_compute) · Epoch AI GPU clusters (CC BY 4.0, via global_context) · as of 2026-10-12 · Compiled by StackPath
Iceland against the EU-27 average and the US
Same measure, same source family, nearest year. A dash means no comparable figure, not zero. Measured
| Measure | Iceland | EU-27 | US | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big-user electricity price | no figure | €0.110/kWh H2 2025 | €0.076/kWh 2025 | €0.165/kWh H1 2026 |
| Grid carbon intensity | 28 g/kWh 202587% below EU | 211 g/kWh 2025 | 384 g/kWh 2025 | 263 g/kWh 2025 |
| Clean power share | 100% 2025+29 pts vs EU | 71% 2025 | 43% 2025 | 47.7% 2025 |
| Data centres' share of electricity | 3.1% 2024+0.1 pts vs EU | 3% 2024 | 4.4% 2023 | 23.2% 2025 |
| Businesses using AI | no figure | 19.9% 2025 | – | 19.6% 2025 |
| People using generative AI | no figure | 32.7% 2025 | – | 44.9% 2025 |
| Electricity use per person | 46.6 MWh 20257.6× EU | 6.2 MWh 2025 | 13.3 MWh 2025 | 6.8 MWh 2025 |
| Supercomputing per million people | 26.8 PF 2026/062.6× EU | 10.2 PF 2026/06 | 20.6 PF 2026/06 | 1.2 PF 2026/06 |
| GPU compute per million people | 13,354 H100e 2025-0775.4× EU | 177 H100e 2025-07 | 3,660 H100e 2025-07 | – |
Source: Eurostat nrg_pc_205, isoc_eb_ai, isoc_ai_iaiu · Ember · EIA via eu_power_prices · LBNL via US DOE (US data-centre share) · Ember Grids for data centres (Europe share) · TOP500 · Epoch AI GPU clusters · World Bank population · as of 2026-10-12 · Compiled by StackPath
Our reading. Per person, Iceland has 3.6 times the US level of GPU-cluster compute in Epoch AI's database and 1.3 times the US level of TOP500 supercomputing power. Epoch's database covers only part of the world's AI compute, and private clusters are under-recorded everywhere, and per-person figures swing widely for a country of 392 thousand people. Estimate
Power: 100% clean generation, no Eurostat big-user price
Generation mix in 2025 (Ember); Eurostat publishes no big-user price for Iceland. Measured
Share of generation by source, 2025. Darker bars are fossil. Demand 18.3 TWh; generation 18.3 TWh. Carbon intensity 28 gCO2e/kWh (EU-27: 211; US: 384).
Source: Ember yearly electricity data (CC BY 4.0) · Compiled by StackPath
Data centres: about 3.1% of Iceland's electricity
Electricity share, capacity reported under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED, the EU's data-centre reporting law), grid requests, restrictions and energy rules. Reported
- Share of electricity: 3.1% in 2024 (metered deliveries to end users, category 1644 'Gagnaver' (data centres): 587.8 GWh of 19,029 GWh delivered; Orkustofnun, Iceland's energy authority, ROS-3-2026 Raforkunotkun 2024). Europe as a whole: about 3% (2024, Ember estimate); the US: 4.4% (2023, LBNL estimate).
Source: Orkustofnun, Iceland's energy authority, ROS-3-2026 Raforkunotkun 2024 · Compiled by StackPath
Cloud in Iceland: sovereign offers and neoclouds
Hyperscaler pledges (a pledge is not a building), sovereign-cloud offers by jurisdiction, and neocloud (GPU cloud) sites. Reported
Neocloud sites in Iceland
| Company | Site | MW | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nscale | S-1 site 4 colocation | 15 (live) | active |
| Nscale | S-1 site 8 colocation | 16 (contracted) | contracted |
| Nebius | Keflavik (colocation) | – | Agreement Dec 2024 for a cluster of 'thousands of GPUs' |
Source: StackPath eu_pledges (company announcements) · StackPath sovereign_cloud · StackPath eu_neoclouds (filings, company releases) · Compiled by StackPath
Compute: 10.5 PF on the TOP500, 5,240 H100e in known GPU clusters
Public AI Factories (EuroHPC), gigafactory bids, the TOP500 supercomputer list and Epoch AI's database of GPU clusters (in H100-equivalents: compute expressed as a number of Nvidia H100 chips). Measured
- EuroHPC role: Antenna (AIFA-ICE, selected, linked to LUMI AI Factory).
- TOP500 (2026/06): 1 system, 10.5 PF combined (0.06% of the list).
- GPU clusters (Epoch AI): 5,240 H100e, 0.33% of the world total in Epoch's database (clusters operational by 2025-07). The US holds 1,251,044 H100e in the same data. Estimate
In Epoch AI's frontier data-centre list: Nscale Keflavik (Nscale, 5 MW).
Source: EuroHPC JU via eu_ai_factories · TOP500 June 2026 · Epoch AI (CC BY 4.0) · StackPath eu_compute (announced clusters) · Compiled by StackPath
What our data does not show for Iceland
Gaps, not zeros: a missing row means no public figure we could check, or that the series does not cover this country.
- No published data-centre grid-queue figure.
- No current hyperscaler investment pledge in our tracker.
- No EU AI Factory and no public AI gigafactory bid.
- No Chips Act fab or pilot line in our ledger.
- No AI lab or AI-chip startup in our European tables.
- Not covered by Eurostat's AI-use surveys.
Deeper pages and other countries
Each layer has its own page with the full European table.
- The country scorecard (18 largest markets)
- Electricity prices for data centres
- Data-centre capacity and electricity use
- Data-centre grid queues
- Restrictions and moratoriums
- Data-centre energy rules
- Hyperscaler pledges vs builds
- Sovereign cloud
- Neoclouds
- EU AI Factories and gigafactories
- AI compute in Europe
- Chips Act fabs
- AI chip startups
- European AI labs
- Server imports
- The global AI compute race
All 31 country profiles
Our reading. Against Ireland, Iceland has no comparable Eurostat big-user price and runs a cleaner grid (28 vs 263 gCO2e/kWh). Where data centres and AI compute go also depends on grid access, land, fibre, tax and customers, which these measures do not capture. Our reading
Questions people ask
- How much do large electricity users pay in Iceland?
- Eurostat publishes no big-user electricity price for Iceland, so it is not ranked on price.
- How much electricity do data centres use in Iceland?
- About 3.1% in 2024 (Orkustofnun, Iceland's energy authority, ROS-3-2026 Raforkunotkun 2024). Europe as a whole: about 3% (Ember, 2024); the US: 4.4% (LBNL, 2023).
- Does Iceland host an EU AI Factory?
- Iceland is not an EU member, so it cannot host one; its role in the EuroHPC programme: Antenna.
- How does Iceland compare with Ireland?
- Big-user power: no figure vs Ireland's €0.165/kWh; grid carbon: 28 vs 263 gCO2e/kWh; data centres' share of electricity: 3.1% vs 23.2%; people using generative AI: no figure vs 44.9%.