GI Partners has acquired a 65% stake in two hyper-scale data centres in the US from Digital Realty Trust.
The alternatives investment firm has invested an undisclosed sum on behalf of its Essential Tech + Science Fund (ETS Fund) to buy the majority interest in the 67MW portfolio in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
NYSE-listed Digital Realty Trust has retained a 35% interest and will continue to manage the day-to-day operations of the properties.
Rick Magnuson, founder and executive managing director at GI Partners, said: “We are excited to announce the formation of a joint venture with one of the leading data centre operators in the world and a company that GI Partners helped launch in 2001
“We look forward to our renewed partnership with Digital Realty and growing these assets alongside their team.”
John Sheputis, managing director and head of ETS Fund, said: “These properties were designed to serve today’s increased dense computer customer requirements and have been exceptionally maintained by a world-class team.”
Rahul Chandiok, principal, added, “The properties are able to provide efficient, high-density solutions for artificial intelligence and machine learning deployments while also providing low-latency connectivity to the Midwest market and to other major data centre clusters.”
Since launching in 2021, the ETS Fund has acquired 22 properties and is actively investing in a diverse portfolio of data centres, life sciences properties, and always-on facilities across key markets in North America.
In April last year, GI Partners raised an initial $1.45bn (€1.33bn) for the US open-ended core-plus life science and technology-related real estate fund.
As previously reported, the Illinois State Universities Retirement System and the Employees Retirement System of Texas committed $75m and $100m respectively to the fund.
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