Data Centers in Lyon

Lyon – High Speed Redundancy for the French Industrial Core

Executive Summary

Lyon is the primary alternative to Paris for enterprises requiring geographic redundancy and mission-critical uptime in Continental Europe. It serves as a vital interconnection point for industrial, pharmaceutical, and financial workloads that need localized processing and low-latency access to the Alpine region. Placing infrastructure here ensures high availability for southern French markets while maintaining a direct link to the Swiss and Italian digital economies.

Lyon: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Lyon is a mature interconnection environment that provides essential diversity for French network architecture. It functions as a regional gateway, bridging the gap between northern and southern European traffic.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: Carrier count: over 40. As of December 2025, Lyon hosts between 40–50 international transit providers and local fiber operators. This healthy mix across 17 facilities ensures a competitive market for bandwidth and carrier-neutral options.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: 0 – as of September 2025. There are no native on-ramps for AWS or Google Cloud (GCP) physically located in Lyon. Most deployments utilize private waves or dedicated network interconnects to reach primary cloud hubs in Paris.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): Rezopole (LyonIX) is the primary exchange, keeping regional traffic within local networks and reducing latency for Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes users as of September 2025.

Bare Metal: High-performance compute services without virtualization overhead are readily available through providers such as OVHcloud and Leaseweb as of September 2025.

Power Analysis

The energy landscape in Lyon is defined by the broader French grid, which remains among the most stable and carbon-efficient in Europe.

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity: €0.15 – €0.21/kWh, as of December 2025. This cost is supported by a generation mix consisting of approximately 68% nuclear and 22% renewables, providing price stability compared to markets dependent on fossil fuels.

Power Grid Reliability: The local grid is well-engineered with redundant substation support, ensuring high uptime for concentrated data center clusters in Villeurbanne and Venissieux as of September 2025.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Lyon is the industrial center of France, offering a business environment that is both commercially vibrant and strategically located for cross-border trade.

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers are centrally located near the Part-Dieu business district and the Gerland biodistrict. This proximity is vital for low-latency applications supporting the pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors as of September 2025.

Regional Market Reach: Lyon effectively serves a regional population of over 10 million people while acting as a vital link to the Swiss and Italian markets as of September 2025.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: France provides financial support through European Investment Bank financing for major digital infrastructure developments. This helps reduce long-term capital costs for operators expanding their regional footprint.

Natural Disaster Risk

Lyon maintains a Low overall risk profile with an INFORM score of 2.7/10 as of September 2025. The city is geographically shielded from many extreme weather events, though specific hazards require management.

• River Flood (7.5): The primary natural concern due to the city position at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers as of September 2025.
• Earthquake (2.8): Seismic activity is present but at low intensities that standard modern construction handles easily as of September 2025.
• Epidemic (2.4): In line with regional European averages for public health risk as of September 2025.
• Drought (1.6): A minor risk that can occasionally impact water-cooled facilities during extreme heat cycles as of September 2025.

Other hazards such as tropical cyclones and tsunamis are not applicable to this inland metro. All figures are current as of September 2025.