Playmobil's factory becomes a data centre: 100MW instead of 350 jobs
Brandstätter, Playmobil's parent, is turning its home plant in Dietenhofen, closed in June, into a 100-megawatt data-centre campus; on the same day Volkswagen began dismantling used cars in Zwickau.
Where toy figures were made until June, the Horst Brandstätter Group plans a data-centre campus with 100 megawatts of capacity; 350 employees lost their jobs when production closed. On the same day Volkswagen began series dismantling of used vehicles at its electric-car plant in Zwickau.
What happened
The two announcements show what becomes of industrial sites whose original business has gone. Dietenhofen was Playmobil's last German factory; production moved abroad. Its value now lies in the grid connection: the site has a 110-kilovolt line, and N-ERGIE, the grid operator, has confirmed the necessary capacity. Brandstätter wants to offer everything from connected land to finished computing capacity, run by a new unit, Playmobil digital. The company has given no investment figure, timetable or tenants, nor a number of new jobs. In Zwickau, where about 8,000 people work and only electric cars have been built since 2020, VW is investing up to €90m in a circular-economy centre. It plans to dismantle 4,100 vehicles there in 2027 and up to 15,000 a year by 2030. Jobs in this area are to rise from 100 to as many as 1,000. Zwickau is one of four German VW and Audi sites whose car production is currently in doubt.
What follows
Assessment: a power connection and permits are becoming an old factory's scarcest asset. A data centre can bring a municipality business tax and grid investment, but rarely as many jobs as the factory it replaces; confirmed figures for Dietenhofen are lacking. For workers, the new roles demand different skills and need not go to the same people. Zwickau points in a second direction. If the EU requires a minimum share of recycled plastic in new cars, dismantling old ones becomes a business with its own jobs. Measured against 8,000 staff at the plant, however, 1,000 jobs by 2030 are a part, not a replacement.
What changes in practice
- Employees
- 350 jobs in Playmobil's production are gone; whether and how many jobs the data-centre campus will create is open.
- Municipalities
- An existing high-voltage connection makes brownfield sites attractive for data centres and can bring new revenue.
- Car workers in Zwickau
- Dismantling is to bring up to 1,000 jobs, against about 8,000 employees at the plant.
What to watch
- Investment and tenants for the Dietenhofen campus
- Number of jobs the campus actually creates
- VW's decisions on production in Zwickau, Emden, Hanover and Neckarsulm
Sources
- Salzburger Nachrichten (APA/dpa-AFX): Playmobil-Werk soll zu Rechenzentrum werden (28.10.2026)
- t3n: Statt Spielfiguren jetzt Server (28.10.2026)
- ORF: Playmobil-Werk soll Rechenzentrum werden
- Autohaus: VW startet Hochlauf für Auto-Demontage in Zwickau
- WirtschaftsWoche: VW startet Hochlauf für Auto-Demontage in Zwickau