Data Center Investment News — 02/09/2022
CloudHQ planning 180MW data center campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota
CloudHQ is looking to develop a data center in Chaska, outside Minneapolis, Minnesota.
First reported by BizJournal, CloudHQ is planning to develop a data center campus on 72 acres of land in Carver County’s City of Chaska. The site is listed as Kelzer Property – 2007 Schoolmaster Drive in council documents. The council this month Approved the Alternate Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) Order and Scoping Document. CloudHQ still needs preliminary and final site plan approvals from the city, which it plans to seek later this year.
According to filed documents with Chaska Council, CloudHQ was proposing to either develop four buildings totaling 500,000 sq ft (46,450 sqm) consisting of two 100,000 sq ft and two 150,000 sq ft buildings; or one larger 1.8 million sq ft (167,225 sqm) development.
However, in the presentation to the City Council this month, CloudHQ was suggesting it would develop one two-story facility spanning 713,000 sq ft (and 1.4 million sq ft in total – 66,200 sqm and 130,000 sqm). The presentation suggests the facility will offer up to 180MW of capacity.
ColCap and van Rooyen to launch new $1 billion data center fund known as Tract
The founders of Cologix are launching a new data center firm and are seeking funding.
The Australian Financial Review reports that Columbia Capital (ColCap), the management team from Cologix, and the van Rooyen Family Office have formed a new data center firm and are looking for investors.
The new company, known as Tract, is looking for $1 billion in funding to build a portfolio of land for hyperscale and wholesale data centers. Tract is run by Grant van Rooyen, Cologix’s former CEO and president.
AFR said the fund claims – via a flyer being sent to investors – to have identified 40,000 acres of potential investment sites, including prospective sites in Eagle Mountain in Utah, and Reno in Nevada.
Ken Jackson named director of facility development at NTT
Ken Jackson has been appointed the director of facility development at NTT, based out of Nashville, US.
Jackson was previously the data center operations leader at TierPoint. Prior to spending over three years at TierPoint, Jackson was a critical environment project manager at the Bank Of New York Mellon Financial Corporation.
He also spent six years at Hewlett-Packard, and time at AMD, CBRE, Johnston Technologies, and the US Navy. Jackson is the Tennessee chapter president of AFCOM.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Director of Facility Development at NTT Global Data Centers!” Jackson said on LinkedIn, before clarifying that he is working at NTT Ltd, not NTT GDC.
Skybox & Prologis acquire 220 acres outside Austin for data center campus
Skybox and Prologis are expanding their partnering and developing another data center campus outside Austin, Texas.
Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters and its partner, San Francisco-based Prologis Inc., have purchased more than 220 acres from the City of Hutto in northeast Austin, where they plan to build a data center campus. Details of the planned development – including specifications, energy requirements, or timelines – were not shared.
The City of Hutto said the land is part of the Hutto Megasite, a tract of land for strategic development on the south side of US Hwy 79 in far eastern Hutto.
“The City of Hutto is very attractive for its strong workforce, prime location and pro-growth mindset,” said Prologis VP and investment officer JC Witt. “The site on Highway 79 is a rare find, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the City and Skybox Datacenters to develop it. We are excited to see our relationship with Skybox Datacenters flourish in Texas and continue to grow our Prologis presence in the greater Austin area!”
Data centre consolidation has been in the news for quite some time, but deals are being negotiated across the globe as there’s no signs of merger and acquisitions (M&A) stopping anytime soon.
Two current deals in the making are those of UK-based Global Switch Holdings Ltd. which could see it’s real estate acquired for US$10 billion and Malaysia’s Time Dotcom Bhd. (KLSE: TIMECOM) data centre business which is estimated to come with a price tag US$600 million or more.
According to Bloomberg, EQT Partners (EQT:SS), KKR (NYSE: KKR), Gaw Capital Partners, PAG, and Stonepeak Partners have all moved on to the next phase of the bidding process for Global Switch.
The bidders are expected to begin due diligence work in the coming weeks ahead of a deadline for biding offers, people familiar with the matter said.
AdaniConneX Plans to Build 1,000 MW Data Centers by 2032
In the next 10 years, AdaniConneX is planning to build 1,000 megawatt data centres — almost double the present size of the total industry, according to a PTI report.
AdaniConneX Senior Vice President and Head of Data Centre Business, Sanjay Bhutani said the first seven data centres of the company will come up in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune. “We are building 1,000 megawatt data centres. Today, the industry stands at 550 MW. Building 1,000 megawatt data centre in the next one decade is something which is our business plan,” Bhutani said.
Further, he added that undersea cable is very important for the data centre business and Mumbai and Chennai are only two locations in India which are connected to this network. “We are unlocking that by bringing in a cable in the southern part of the country, eastern part of the country and central part of the country,” Bhutani said.
The government has granted digital infrastructure status to data centres and seven states have already come up with a data centre policy, which Bhutani said is helping the company to be more efficient and agile. “Government also came out with a lot of policies which are actually helping the nation to grow at a faster pace, creating a common infrastructure, which can be used by all of us. Let’s not create data centers individually,” Bhutani said.
Microsoft drops plans to expand Staffanstorp data center in Sweden, looking for new site
Microsoft has dropped plans to expand capacity at one of its data centers in Sweden and will be looking for another location in the country to develop a new facility.
First announced in November 2020, Microsoft opened a new Azure cloud region in Sweden in late 2021. With facilities in Gävle, Sandviken, and Staffanstorp, the combined region is known as Sweden Central. The company this week said its site in Staffanstorp, Skåne/Scania County, would no longer see its backup capacity expanded any further and it would be looking for new sites to develop in southern Sweden.
“Microsoft Sweden can announce today that the company has chosen to withdraw its permit application for the construction and operation of backup power units at the data center in Staffanstorp,” the company said last week on its Swedish site. “The reason behind the decision is a greatly increased demand for the company’s cloud services and secure data storage, which means that there is a need for a larger data center in the region than the one planned in Staffanstorp.”
Edge Centres launches facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Australian Edge data center firm Edge Centres has launched a facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“EC31 Kuala Lumpur; Our first Asian Location is now operational with customers starting to onboard over the next few weeks,” the company said on LinkedIn this week. The company said the facility was launched in under four months.
The Australian firm provides modular ‘off grid’ data centers powered by on-site wind and/or solar power and connected to the main grid as backup. Each facility is equipped with just under 1MW of solar infrastructure, and 48-hour battery, and UPS backup equipment, which supports 64 1kW quarter racks. The company says the sites can produce more electricity than they use.
While traditionally focused on Australia, the company recently announced plans to expand into Asia. As well as Malaysia, it also developing a facility in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has projects planned and/or in development in three locations in Thailand. EC61 Chiang Mai will be the first site to be deployed, followed by EC62 Phuket, and EC63 Khon Kaen.
Africa Data Centres expands Johannesburg data center capacity from 10MW to 40MW
Africa Data Centres (ADC) has broken ground on its Samrand facility expansion, which will add 30MW of capacity to one of its two campuses in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies, is a pan-African technology group with data centers in Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya among others. Once the expansion is completed, the company’s entire platform capacity is expected to exceed 100MW.
“The expansion will happen in multiple phases. The construction of the first phase is starting today [August 30] and will deliver 20MW across eight data halls by 2023. The next phase will include an additional 10MW of IT load by the end of 2025,” said Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres. He added the infrastructure will be fully modular and prefabricated off-site.
ADC acquired the Samrand data center from Standard Bank in 2020. The 65,000 sq m (700,000 sq ft) site, built to Tier IV standards, previously focused on secure IT systems for banks. Built for $87 million in 2010, the location at the time of the acquisition consisted of two buildings allowing for up to eight data center modules of 1,500 sqm (16,000 sq ft) each.
Indonesia’s Sinar Mas Group sets ground works budget ahead of 1GW data centre roll out
PT Puradelta Lestari Tbk (DMAS), a Sinar Mas Group company, said it has set aside a capital expenditure (CAPEX) budget of Rp 1 trillion (US$67 million) to be used until the end of 2022 in data centre land preparation works.
Part of the funds will be used to prepare data centre land in West Java, at the Greenland International Industrial Centre (GIIC), for the construction of new facilities after the New Year.
Puradelta Lestari Finance Director Tondy Suwanto said the cost for data centre support facilities is around 20-30% of this year’s CAPEX or around Rp 200-300 billion. The data centre land preparation works include the deployment of necessary fibre networks to link the site to the wider fibre infrastructure.
“The development of digital business is so rapid, everyone needs a data centre to store all data, for example e-commerce companies. Data centre is a new business, new gold,” Tondy told Indonesian newsroom Investor Daily.