Scaleway buys HPC and heat-recovery specialist Qarnot in sovereignty push
What's the deal? European cloud provider Scaleway has acquired Qarnot, a French specialist in high-performance computing (HPC) for engineering, simulation, and research workloads. The acquisition lets Scaleway add dedicated HPC capabilities to its cloud and AI platform. Terms were not disclosed.
What's Qarnot? Founded around 2010, the company began as a "digital boiler" startup, placing compute hardware inside buildings to heat water and reuse waste heat. It now runs more than 50,000 computing cores across sites in France and Europe, particularly Finland, and opened a data center in Italy in June 2025.
Why the heat matters: Qarnot brings patented direct liquid-cooling technology that recovers up to 95% of the heat produced by HPC servers, redirecting it to district heating networks and industrial sites without hurting performance. It has partnered with A2ADealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → in Brescia, Italy, to connect HPC infrastructure to the city's district heating network and aquatic centers.
Why now? Both companies are based in Europe and governed by European jurisdiction, which Scaleway says gives customers immunity from extraterritorial laws. Scaleway launched a Milan cloud region in early 2026 and was named a winner of the European Commission's sovereign cloud tender in April 2026.
"Tomorrow's cloud platforms won't only be measured by the performance they deliver, but by how intelligently they use the energy they consume," said Damien LucasDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, chief executive officer of Scaleway.
What changes for Qarnot? The deal backs the startup with a major European cloud provider and the Iliad GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Qarnot had raised around $6.5 million in 2020, following $2.5m from Data4 GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, then €35 million in early 2023, plus further funding via the European Innovation Council in 2025.
"It gives us the scale, investment capacity and European reach to bring our HPC expertise to more organisations," said Clément PellegriniDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, chief technology officer of Qarnot.
The signal: The deal ties two European priorities together — sovereign cloud infrastructure and energy efficiency — as providers race to serve AI and HPC demand. For Scaleway, waste heat recovery becomes a differentiator against US hyperscalers competing for the same regulated, sovereignty-conscious customers.
Read more: DataCenterDynamics
Image credit: Tero Karppinen
