Data Centers in Lyon

Lyon – France's Strategic Digital Crossroads

Executive Summary

Lyon is a key secondary data center market in Europe, ideal for businesses requiring a strategic footprint in France beyond Paris. Its robust infrastructure provides low-latency connectivity to Southern Europe, ensuring reliable application performance and uptime for critical workloads. This market offers a compelling combination of a stable risk profile, dense connectivity, and access to a major economic region.

Lyon: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Lyon serves as a vital digital hub connecting Paris to Marseille, Switzerland, and Italy. The city’s ecosystem is mature and provides excellent options for building resilient, high-performance network architectures.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality The market features 17 data centers with access to over 8 national and international carriers, as of September 2025. This carrier-neutral environment provides competitive pricing and diverse routing options, preventing vendor lock-in and improving uptime.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps There are no direct public cloud on-ramps within Lyon's data centers, as of September 2025. High-speed, low-latency access to all major cloud providers, including AWS, Google Cloud (GCP), and Microsoft Azure, is achieved through private network connections to primary hubs in Paris and Marseille.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) The primary local IXP is LyonIX. Peering at LyonIX allows networks to exchange traffic directly, reducing latency and transit costs for traffic destined for the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and beyond.

Bare Metal Bare metal server capacity is readily available in Lyon. Providers like OVHcloud and Leaseweb offer dedicated server solutions for workloads that demand maximum performance and security without the overhead of virtualization.

Power Analysis

France's power infrastructure is a significant advantage for data center operations in Lyon, characterized by stability and a favorable generation mix.

Average Cost Of Power Industrial power costs typically range from €0.16 – €0.21/kWh, as of September 2025. This competitive pricing is largely due to France's energy mix, which is approximately 68% nuclear and 22% renewables. These predictable power costs help ensure manageable operational expenditures.

Power Grid Reliability The national power grid is highly reliable and stable. Data centers in the Lyon area are served by well-engineered transmission and distribution networks, often with redundant substation support, ensuring high levels of uptime for mission-critical facilities.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Lyon provides a strategic location for reaching a large and diverse economic region with a supportive business environment for digital infrastructure.

Proximity To Key Business Districts Data centers in Lyon are well-positioned to serve the region's thriving life sciences, chemical, and digital media industries. Proximity to these key sectors allows for low-latency support of research, manufacturing, and content delivery applications.

Regional Market Reach From Lyon, a single data center deployment can effectively serve a population of tens of millions across Southern France, Switzerland (including Geneva), and Northern Italy (including Turin and Milan). This makes it an efficient hub for pan-regional service delivery.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers While broad national tax incentives are not standard, France supports digital infrastructure through strategic financing. The availability of European Investment Bank (EIB) loans for specific data center projects signals a favorable climate for large-scale investment.

Natural Disaster Risk

Lyon maintains a low natural disaster risk profile, with an INFORM Risk score of 2.7 out of 10, as of September 2025. The environment is stable, but operators should engineer for specific regional factors.

The primary natural hazard considerations for this market include:

• River Flood: (7.5/10) A moderate risk due to the city's location at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers.
• Earthquake: (2.8/10) A minor risk from seismic activity.
• Drought: (1.6/10) A low but present risk impacting water resources.

Risks from other major natural events like tropical cyclones are negligible in this region.