By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Nebius NBIS.O, the Amsterdam-based AI cloud services firm, is planning a new 240-megawatt data centre in Béthune, France, near Lille, that will be one of Europe’s largest when it is finished, the company said on Thursday.

The project, a redevelopment of a former Bridgestone tyre plant, is expected to begin delivering capacity in phases, with the first capacity online by late summer and roughly half the site operational by the end of 2026, company Chief Communications Officer Tom Blackwell said.

Nebius has gained prominence by striking high-profile deals to supply AI infrastructure to U.S. hyperscalers, including a $17 billion deal with Microsoft MSFT.O and a $3 billion deal with Meta META.O. It is often grouped with Coreweave CRWV.O of the U.S. as one of the key so-called "neocloud" firms.

Although financial terms of the Béthune project were not disclosed, a data centre of this scale would require several billion euros in investment.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

((amsterdam.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com))