In the race to develop artificial intelligence services for industries such as shipping, which is eager for such applications, DEI is considering entering the market through the data center it is developing in Spata and the one it is planning in Western Macedonia, for which it is reportedly in very advanced discussions with American tech giants.
In this direction, the company is focused on creating an ecosystem of services that will allow specialized companies to offer, through its own infrastructure, artificial intelligence applications to businesses with increased data processing needs.
The topic was highlighted yesterday at the annual Eurelectric conference in Helsinki by by the vice president of the European body and CEO of the company , George Stassis, who , speaking on the panel titled “AI for Power,” said that PPC is considering providing hosting services to companies that offer data services to the shipping industry, as well as to other sectors, such as the legal sector (Legal Tech).
The rationale behind the plan is that PPC will act as a wholesaler, leasing high-computing-power infrastructure to specialized companies, which in turn will offer artificial intelligence services to their own Greek and foreign clients.
The issue concerns not only the ambitious project, initially planned for 300 MW, that the company intends to implement in Kozani—construction of which is set to begin within the year— but also the 12.5 MW project it is launching in collaboration with Damac in Spata, which is already underway. The €150 million project is scheduled for completion in early 2027.
In essence, agreements between shipping companies and data centers represent an international trend, with services covering the full range of data required by such a company—from weather data to fleet and crew management, cybersecurity monitoring, and so on.
In the Eastern Mediterranean and Greece, shipping companies based in Piraeus often use either local data centers or infrastructure in major European hubs such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London, depending on their connectivity and resilience requirements.
From a business perspective, these are typically multi-year hosting/colocation contracts with fixed monthly or annual revenue for the data center provider, making them attractive to large clients due to the massive volume of data they require and the need for 24/7 operation.
The above are part of the roadmap for the company’s future, its plans not only for data centers but also more broadly for the artificial intelligence sector, and reinforce the image of a group that is increasingly moving away from the electricity sector in the traditional sense of the term.
“We used to be an electricity company; today we are a clean technology company; tomorrow we may become a data center company,” said Mr. Stassis, who, speaking in his capacity as vice president of Eurelectric to outline the state of the entire sector, discussed a technological revolution unfolding alongside the energy transition, citing the rapid transformation of PPC as an example.
“PPC was an electricity company that relied on lignite. Today, PPC is a clean-tech company. Tomorrow, it could be a data center company or even an artificial intelligence applications company. “Who knows?” he said, emphasizing that traditional definitions of businesses are changing rapidly.
The long road ahead
Of course, this does not mean that PPC or the European energy sector has reached the point of complete transformation through artificial intelligence. Most companies are still in the phase of trying to become more efficient through AI, although some are moving faster than others.
It should be noted that in PPC’s new business plan, which has a horizon of 2030 and was announced on April 23 (concurrently with the capital increase), it is projected that 300 million euros will be spent, approximately 4% of the total amount of 24 billion, on investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital transformation.
AI is already being applied to transactions and energy management, maintenance and predictive analytics, the integration of renewable energy sources into grids, and the reduction of technical and commercial losses.
The big challenge, of course, lies in adapting the workforce to this new landscape. “It is essential that we train our people in this culture. Everyone must be involved. Those who do not learn this technology will be left behind,” said the vice president of Eurelectric, acknowledging that while the continent may not have led the way in developing large-scale artificial intelligence models, it holds a significant advantage in the field of industrial applications.
“Europe has a huge opportunity ahead of it. But this opportunity won’t be there forever. We must act immediately,” he warned.