Australian pension fund Aware Super has committed US$300m (€257m) to the Skyline data centre joint venture business, which indirectly owns Vantage Data Centres APAC.
The business currently runs 10 data centres across Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
The transaction is Aware Super’s second investment with DigitalBridge. The Australian pension fund, along with IFM Investors, backed DigitalBridge in its US$11bn takeover of Switch in 2022.
The latest deal brings Aware Super’s global investment in digital infrastructure to A$6bn (€3.5bn), spanning the four major regions of the world – the US, Europe, Australasia and Asia.
Aware Super’s head of infrastructure Mark Hector told IPE Real Assets: “It is not a coincidence that this latest investment is in Asia-Pacific. We have the big Switch data centre platform in the US, Vocus and 2Degrees in Australia and New Zealand, and euNetworks in Europe. So, over the last year or so, we’ve been intentionally focussed on getting diversified geographic exposure, particularly to Asia.
“On a per capita basis, Asia is materially underinvested in data centres. It has 60% of the world’s population – and growing - and the take-up of technology has been rapid,” he said. Further, unlike Europe land and power were more available for data centre development in Asia.”
While acknowledging concerns about over investment in AI, Hector pointed to the fund’s policy of maintaining broad diversification across all sectors and regions. Currently, over 25% of its infrastructure portfolio is allocated to digital assets.
He said it was important not to concentrate investments and to be cautious with valuations to avoid overpaying for uncertain long-term growth.
DigitalBridge chief strategy officer, Kevin Smithen said: “We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Aware Super in one of the fastest-growing data centre markets globally.
“Vantage APAC is a high-quality platform operating in markets with strong structural demand, and this investment aligns with our strategy of supporting leading operators as cloud and AI workloads accelerate across the region.”
Jeremy Deutsch, Vantage Data Centres President, APAC, said: “Vantage’s APAC business is growing at an unprecedented pace. With partners like DigitalBridge and Aware Super, we are well positioned to expand our APAC portfolio to meet AI and cloud demand in markets that matter most to our customers.”
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