Data Center Investment News — 29/07/2022
Paratus sets date for Namibia data centre launch
Africa’s telecom operator Paratus said the group will open a new data centre facility in Namibia in August 2022 to offer colocation services for national and foreign businesses.
To be operated under the group’s local arm, Paratus Namibia, the facility in Windhoek will count with 2MW of power capacity and have a direct link to the new Equiano cable and CLS in Swakopmund.
The site will also access Paratus’s backbone network linking multinational customers to the Paratus Data Centers in Angola and Zambia. Schalk Erasmus, Chief Operations Officer of the Paratus Group and CEO Designate, said: “With 99.98% uptime, backed by the most sophisticated technologies – including multiple solar-banks – it provides unique assurances.
! The resilience we offer at Armada is unmatched in Namibia. We have invested heavily and have appointed the best designers and engineers to make Armada the most secure, environmentally friendly, and efficient facility in the country. Armada is the archetype of modern technology at work. Effectively, Armada will provide Namibian businesses with the opportunity to participate in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR).
Ex-Partners Group head joins DigitalBridge in boost to APAC strategy
DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE: DBRG) has appointed Tae E. Ahn as Managing Director and Head of Asia Capital Formation at DigitalBridge Investment Management.
Based in Singapore, he will work alongside DigitalBridge’s existing team with a focus on capital formation, co-investment and client relationship management across Asia-Pacific. Ahn has more than 15 years of capital formation and business development leadership experience in the financial sector, along with expertise in Asian markets.
Prior to joining DigitalBridge, he served as Senior Client Relationship Manager and Head of Korea at global private markets firm Partners Group. In that role, which he held for seven years, Ahn led fundraising, client relationship management and deal sourcing.
Kevin Smithen, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer of DigitalBridge, said: “We are pleased to welcome Tae to DigitalBridge, expanding our Asia-Pacific presence and further supporting our investment team with capital formation capabilities.
AREP-backed $1bn data centre division launches with heavyweight board appointments
Institutional fund manager American Real Estate Partners (AREP) and investment management firm Harrison Street have launched a new data centre brand as part of the parties’ US$1 billion joint venture signed last January.
PowerHouse Data Centers has been created to develop, own and operate data centres and technical real estate solutions for hyperscalers in Northern Virginia. The launch has come with the appointment of Luke Kipfer as Vice President of Data Center Development and Construction and Jarrett Appleby to Data Center Strategy Consultant and Senior Advisor.
Kipfer has more than 15 years of exceptional mission-critical experience leading multi-million-dollar data centre design and construction.
Before joining AREP, he was Regional Director at Direct Line Global where he oversaw project management and operations for several of the world’s largest hyperscale data centre sites.
Data Center First Breaks Ground on Maiden Data Centre in Nongsa
Data Center First (DCF) is officially breaking ground on their maiden data centre, Nongsa One, which is strategically located in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Nongsa Digital Park (NDP) in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government has designated Nongsa Digital Park to be a prime location bolstering Indonesia’s digital transformation. Located in Eastern Batam, which is away from seismic fault lines, Nongsa is a safe location for data centres. As such, Nongsa will be a space for businesses and data centre operators to collaborate and create an integrated digital ecosystem.
Phase 1 of DCF’s Nongsa One is situated on 2.57 hectares of land, and when completed will be a two-storey building with 6 MW of critical IT load. The building will have a gross floor area of 6084.6 square metres, and will be configured within 4 independent data centre halls.
Aligned to build 72MW data center in Sterling, Virginia
Aligned Data Centers is to develop another campus in Northern Virginia. The company this week announced the development of a second hyperscale data center campus located in Sterling, Loudoun County.
Phase one delivery of the campus’ first facility, IAD-03, is targeted for Fall 2023. At full build-out, the four-story building will offer 72MW across 430,000 sq ft (40,000 sqm). The company didn’t share full future plans for the campus.
“Speed-to-market, scalability, and sustainability have long been considered ground zero for hyperscale customers, and Aligned’s unmatched ability to successfully navigate strategic site selection challenges such as power and land constraints, supply chain issues, and energy efficiency and sustainability requirements is critical to meeting these needs,” said Andrew Schaap, CEO of Aligned. “Our team is laser-focused on eliminating the risks and cost exposures associated with new builds, and with our advanced supply chain methodology and experienced global partners, Aligned can deliver infrastructure anywhere an organization’s business growth demands, providing incrementally scalable data center capacity — aligned with our customers’ designs or ours — in unprecedented timeframes.”
ESR closes $1bn data center development fund
Logistics real estate firm ESR Cayman has closed its first data center development fund.
The company this week announced the close of over $1 billion in equity commitments for its inaugural vehicle, Data Centre Fund 1 (ESR DC Fund 1), dedicated to the development of its data center business.
The fund’s institutional investors include sovereign wealth and pension funds. ESR said it will raise a separate discretionary capital sleeve to co-invest up to another $1.5 billion into the fund, while partners have an upsize option of an additional equity commitment of $1.5bn, bringing the total investment capacity to as much as $7.5bn.
ESR said its current data center development portfolio comprises projects in Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Mumbai, and Singapore, delivering 300MW.
P3 Logistic Parks planning 180MW data center campus in Hanau, Germany
European logistics real estate firm P3 Logistic Parks is planning a large data center campus on the site of a former army barracks in Hanu, Germany.
The company announced this week that it had taken over the former Großauheim barracks in Hanau, outside Frankfurt from the Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (Institute for Federal Real Estate) and plans to develop the P3 Datacenter Hanau data center campus on the 250,000 sqm (2.7 million sq ft) site. Terms of the land acquisition were not shared, nor was the timeline for the first phase to go live.
Construction will take place in several phases, with at least eight data center modules on a building area of around 200,000 sqm (2.1 million sq ft) to be built over a period of ten years; the site will have an electrical supply of 180MW.
P3 said the on-spec campus will be built and operated sustainably and supplied with 100 percent green electricity. The barracks – vacant since 2008 – will be decontaminated and will see the existing building stock materials recycled and reused for groundworks.
Faropoint acquires industrial building in Glen Burnie, Maryland
Faropoint, a US investment real estate firm has acquired an industrial building and data center in Glen Burnie, Maryland for $10 million.
The property, located at 6704 Curtis Court, sits on 5.38 acres and spans 58,883 square feet (5470 sqm). The site is 82 percent leased to Vision Technologies on a long-term basis and serves as its corporate headquarters. Colliers represented the seller, a private investor, in the deal.
“This is a high-quality headquarters facility with renovated executive offices and amenity space as well as very functional warehouse and data center space,” Michael Blunt, executive vice president at Colliers, told the Commercial Observer. “There is also a 10,800-square-foot (1,000 sqm) vacancy to lease, creating upside potential in an industrial market with very little space available for lease.”
Vision Technologies is a systems integrator supporting Fortune 500 and hyperscale data center customers with on-site IT support, audio visual, and security systems, and the design and installation of low-voltage cabling systems.
Stack opens third data center at Milan campus
Stack Infrastructure has launched another data center outside Milan, Italy. The company this week announced the opening of its third data center in Siziano; the new MIL02 facility spans around 9,000 sq m (97,000 sq ft) and 10MW.
The new facility was constructed in less than 12 months on a land parcel it acquired in 2021 and brings the site’s live data center capacity to 120,000 square meters (1.3 million sq ft) and more than 50MW. Stack said it also owns more than 100,000 square meters (1 million sq ft) of expansion land in Siziano capable of supporting over 80MW of total power, including a new parcel close to the existing campus.
“We believe Italy’s data center landscape is at the outset of a significant growth trend,” said John Eland, CEO of Stack EMEA. “Our latest investment in the region is a key component to our EMEA expansion strategy and solidifies our position as our clients’ trusted development and operational partner in the markets most essential to their own growth.”