Spanish property firm Azora has joined forces with Core Capital to invest more than €500 mln in the construction of a network of six "Edge" data centres in Spain and Portugal.
Azora and Core Capital are making the investment through a new platform called Quetta Data Centers, which will be managed by Azora, and advised by Core Capital.
On completion, the portfolio’s data capacity will exceed 60 MW and will utilize 100% renewable energy to create Iberia’s first eco-efficient network of data centers with a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) rating of less than 1.15.
Edge data centres represent a new category of data centres that are characterized by offering technological solutions to companies that require low latency in data processing and transmission. These data centres are located near large urban centres, close to end consumers, in order to reduce data traffic with large hyperscale data centres, which are usually located at a considerable distance from end users.
This investment marks Azora’s entry into the Iberian data centre sector, based on the conviction that this asset class will experience strong growth in demand in the coming years, driven by supportive structural tailwinds and an acceleration in how businesses and society consumes data. The six assets are predominately located in Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon.
Quetta's target customers are companies with high data traffic, such as content providers, IoT or gaming, which require low latency, i.e. very low delay times in the transmission of information packets.
Quetta will utilize a team with more than 20 years of experience in the sector alongside evolving technologies that can help to address new environmental challenges in the data centers sector.
Quetta has already begun construction of the first data centre in Madrid, located in Tres Cantos, and is in advanced stages of negotiations to complete the acquisition of the land and the contracting of the construction of the centres.
According to Santiago Olivares, partner in charge of energy, infrastructure and sustainability investments at Azora: 'The launch of Quetta is part of our strategy of investing in sustainable infrastructure. The digitalization of the economy offers very attractive investment opportunities in the data centres sector, especially those aimed at companies that offer streaming content, gaming, augmented reality, internet of things and other technologies such as artificial intelligence that will experience strong growth as the speed at which society and business consumes data accelerates. This investment marks our first entry into the Iberian data centres market, an asset class in which we hold a strong conviction and utilizes our deep expertise in both the local real estate market and in developing and owning operationally intensive assets.'
Paco González, founding partner of Core Capital and CEO of Quetta commented: 'Quetta Data Centers seamlessly complements the current offerings in the Data Centre market, addressing the demand for proximity with interconnected geographical coverage, low latency, and 100% green solutions. This creates synergies with existing market operators, both retail and hyperscalers, leveraging the excellent conditions of the Iberian Peninsula.'
