Data Center Investment News — 25/08/2023
China’s GDS cuts ribbon of first Southeast Asia data centre
Chinese data centre operator GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: GDS; HKEX: 9698) has officially opened its Nusajaya Tech Park Data Center Campus in Johor, Malaysia.
The development, also known as GDS NTP Data Center Campus, is the first data centre GDS data centre in Southeast Asia.
The first phase of the campus (consisting of Nusajaya 1, 2, 3 data Centers or NTP1, 2, 3) has a total net floor area of 22,500 sqm, along with a total IT power capacity of 69.5 MW.
William Huang, Chairman and CEO of GDS, said: “As the first and only data centre player that has identified SIJORI region as a strategic location for data centre deployment, GDS enjoys a significant first-mover advantage and possesses extensive industry know-how.
“To create synergies, we actively seek to build up ecosystem through attracting strategic partners and customers from AI sector as well as other high-tech industries. We are confident that our NTP data centre campus will serve as a catalyst for the region’s journey towards a world-class AI computing hub.”
1GW hydrogen-powered data center campus proposed in West Virginia
A renewable investment firm has announced plans for a hydrogen production facility and 1GW data center campus in West Virginia.
Texas-based Fidelis New Energy, which has previously invested in carbon capture, hydrogen, and renewable fuel production facilities, this week announced it had selected Mason County in West Virginia as the location for a hydrogen production facility and data center campus – known as the Mountaineer GigaSystem and the Monarch Cloud Campus.
Once fully built out, the company said the cloud campus’ capacity could reach 1GW, powered by the hydrogen produced on-site via natural gas. Waste heat from the data centers will be fed into co-located greenhouses for food production. The data center campus could see up to $5 billion invested, according to Fidelis.
“We are proud to have selected West Virginia as home to the Mountaineer GigaSystem where it can serve as a major anchor and support for the broader ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub,” Pete Hollis, SVP and global head of CCUS of Fidelis said. “The state’s position at the forefront of energy and chemical production in the United States makes it a natural choice for a project such as ours.”
Vantage tops out first building of 96MW Ashburn data center campus
Vantage Data Centers has topped off its VA21 data center in Ashburn, Virginia.
VA21 is the first data center under construction on Vantage’s 96MW VA2 campus.
The VA2 campus will comprise three data centers across an 18-acre campus for a total of 800,000 sq ft (74,300 sqm) of data center space. The facility will be provided power by Dominion Energy.
The company first filed to develop the campus in August 2022, located less than one mile from its existing VA1 which at full buildout will offer more than 146MW. The company is also developing VA3, a 134-acre development also in Ashburn.
An expected completion date for VA2 has not been shared.
Vantage said in a LinkedIn post: “Today we celebrated the topping out of VA21, the first data center on our developing VA2 campus in Ashburn, Virginia. We were happy to celebrate this milestone with the construction team and trades, our employees and special guest Buddy Rizer. Thanks to our construction and safety teams for all of your hard work to make this a successful project!”
DataBank finishes seven data center expansion projects across US
DataBank has completed seven expansion projects across the US.
The company announced over the weekend the completion of seven data center expansions in Dallas, Las Vegas, San Diego, Irvine, and Kansas City, as well as two in Atlanta.
The seven facilities have added more than 15MW of power and 114,000 raised square feet of floor space (10,590 sqm) during the past 12 months to their existing capacities.
“For organizations planning to deploy, or for existing customers already set up in these data centers, these expansions give them more room to grow,” said Tony Qorri, the DataBank vice president of construction. “They can avoid the hassle of moving to a new data center when it’s time to scale their compute resources.”
DataBank recently sold Edge data center firm EdgePresence and five French data centers. Backer DigitalBridge recapitalized the company and sold a stake to investment firms Swiss Life Asset Management AG, EDF Invest, and IMCO.
Vantage plots data center campus in Atlanta, Georgia
Vantage Data Centers plans to build a new campus in the Douglas County area of Atlanta, Georgia.
First reported by BizJournal, Vantage wants to build almost 1.7 million square feet of data center space across three buildings in Douglasville, according to a filing with the state through the Developments of Regional (DRI) program.
Though the project is described as “construction of a data center with two buildings at 402,000 square feet, 595,000 square feet, and 660,000 square feet,” the project size is listed as “1,657,000 square feet (153,940 sqm) across three buildings.”
A precise location isn’t listed, but the DRI makes reference to Roberts Road in Douglasville and lists a project completion date of December 2025.
Vantage didn’t reply to BJ’s request for comment.
This would be the company’s first development in Georgia. Vantage currently has US data center campuses in Virginia, Washington, Arizona, and California.
Cogent to convert 45 Sprint switch sites into colo data centers
Fiber firm Cogent Communications is planning to turn the former Sprint switching site real estate footprint acquired from T-Mobile into a sizeable colocation data center portfolio.
September 2022 saw T-Mobile announce that it was selling its Wireline business to Cogent for a symbolic $1, with the telco operator set to take a $1 billion charge on the deal.
Much of the business sold to Cogent was Sprint‘s legacy US long-haul fiber network, which T-Mobile had acquired as part of its $26bn merger with Sprint in 2020.
However, the sale to Cogent also included more than 40 data centers totaling some 400,000 sq ft (37,160 sqm) of space and a significant real estate footprint totaling 482 technical spaces and switch sites.
During the earnings call for Congent’s Q2 2023 quarterly earnings this month and reported by Lightwave, Cogent founder and CEO David Schaeffer outlined the company’s plans around Sprint’s data center and switch sites.
Stack launches first data center in Australia
Stack has launched a new data center campus in Melbourne, Australia.
The company this week announced the completion of its first Asia Pacific (APAC) data center, known as MEL01.
Sat on a 3.6-hectare site in Truganina area of Melbourne, the three-story, 36MW MEL01A facility is located on a 72MW campus that will eventually feature two buildings. It also has a 105MW dedicated onsite substation.
“We are proud to celebrate the opening of our first data center in Asia Pacific within the high growth hyperscale corridor of Melbourne,” said Pithambar (Preet) Gona, CEO of Stack APAC. “This first delivery, of many in Asia Pacific, underscores the harmony between Stack’s deep regional delivery expertise and its proven global development capabilities.”
IPI-owned Stack entered the Australian market last year after taking over three development projects owned by local developer Hickory.
Google confirms involvement in 2 million sq ft data center project in Lincoln, Nebraska
Google has officially confirmed it is behind a proposed data center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The company this week announced it was building a third data center in Papillion, and was building a data center in Lincoln. The works will see the search and cloud firm invest $1.2 billion.
“We’re here. We’re here to stay, and we’re here to expand,” Allie Hopkins, Google’s head of data centers said. “It’s a message that Google is sending out to the nation that Nebraska is business-friendly.”
Though long-suspected to be Google, the company has been proposing a data center at a site in Lincoln using the Agate LLC company since 2019.
Agate LLC first filed for a $600 million data center campus in Lancaster County in July 2019. Earlier this year local news reported that site groundworks had finally begun, with Agate filing a request with the US Army Corps of Engineers to develop the data center.
CapitaLand Ascendas REIT completes acquisition of fifth UK data centre
Singapore firm spent S$200 million to grow its presence in the UK
CapitaLand Ascendas REIT (CLAR), announce today it has completed the acquisition of a high-specification Tier III colocation data centre facility in Watford, North-West London.
The total cost of the acquisition was approximately S$214.4mn which included a purchase consideration of S$199.9mn, an acquisition fee of S$2mn, stamp duty, professional and other fees and expenses of S$3mn.
The Total Acquisition Cost of S$214.4mn will be financed by a combination of debt and the proceeds from the equity fund raising announced by CLAR on 16 May 2023.
The seller was not revealed by CLAR.
“As the demand for cloud and digital services continues to rise, we are capitalising on favourable market dynamics to significantly scale up our presence in the data centre sector,” said William Tay, CEO and executive director of CLAR.
The acquisition brings CLAR’s total data centers in the UK to five, and has increased the value of their investment in UK data centres to S$569.8 million. 96% of its UK investment is based in London.