Data Centers in Riga

Riga – High-Speed Digital Gateway to the Baltic States

Executive Summary

Riga serves as the primary interconnection hub for the Baltic region, providing a stable, carrier-neutral environment for enterprises targeting Northern and Eastern Europe. Its combination of high renewable energy penetration and business-friendly tax laws ensures long-term operational sustainability and capital efficiency for high-performance workloads.

Riga: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Riga operates as a mature interconnection point with a sturdy fiber footprint and a neutral provider landscape.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: Carrier count: ~25–30 as of January 2026. The market supports 10 data centers and 7 primary providers, ensuring a competitive environment for transit and specialized fiber routing. The carrier-neutral nature of the major facilities prevents vendor lock-in and keeps pricing lean for international tenants.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: Over 0, enabling access to 0 cloud regions as of January 2026. While local native on-ramps for AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud (GCP) are absent, enterprises reach these providers via private wave extensions to Stockholm. This configuration typically yields sub-10ms round-trip times, which is sufficient for most production workloads.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): The primary exchanges, including LIX and SMILE, facilitate local peering to keep regional traffic efficient as of January 2026. These points reduce reliance on expensive international transit and keep latency low for local end-users.

Bare Metal: High-performance bare metal is readily available in the market from providers such as Hivelocity. These services cater to edge computing and workloads that require dedicated hardware without the overhead of virtualization.

Power Analysis

The Latvian energy sector is characterized by a high commitment to sustainability and a reliable national grid.

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity is priced at approximately US$0.09/kWh as of January 2026. This competitive pricing, combined with a power mix that is nearly 70% renewable, makes Riga a sustainable choice for power-intensive colocation. It effectively helps firms meet green energy mandates while controlling operational expenses.

Power Grid Reliability: The local grid is well-engineered and utilizes multi-substation support in major industrial and telecommunications zones. This redundancy ensures the consistent uptime required for high-availability data center clusters and reduces the risk of localized outages.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

The business environment in Riga is structured to support foreign investment and regional digital expansion.

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers are centrally located near the financial core and the Zakusala telecommunications hub. This proximity is vital for low-latency financial services, media distribution, and government sectors requiring fast access to the city’s economic heart.

Regional Market Reach: A presence in Riga provides direct access to the three Baltic nations and offers efficient transit into the Nordic and CIS markets. It serves as a natural jumping-off point for companies scaling across Northern Europe.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: Latvia utilizes a corporate tax regime where profit is taxed only upon distribution. This allows companies to reinvest capital into hardware and infrastructure without immediate tax penalties, significantly lowering the total cost of ownership for long-term deployments.

Natural Disaster Risk

Riga is a geographically stable location with an overall INFORM Risk score of Low (2.6/10) as of January 2026.

River Flood (6.6): This is the most significant localized risk as of January 2026, primarily affecting areas near the Daugava River. Top-tier data centers are typically situated on higher ground to mitigate this exposure.

Coastal Flood (3.6): This is a moderate regional consideration due to Baltic Sea proximity. However, it remains an indirect risk for most inland infrastructure and is managed through site-specific engineering.

Drought (2.6): This is a minor risk as of January 2026, with limited impact on modern data center cooling operations or grid stability.

Earthquake (0.1): Seismic activity is effectively non-existent in this region. Riga is an ideal location for disaster recovery sites for companies moving away from high-risk seismic zones.

Other natural hazards are considered minor or are not listed for this market as of January 2026.