Data centre company Equinix has signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with GIC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) to raise over USD 15 billion in capital. The JV aims to significantly expand Equinix's xScale data center portfolio, which caters to hyperscale cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) companies. "At full buildout, this new JV will nearly triple the investment capital of the Equinix xScale program and meeting the increasing need for data centres driven by increasing artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud growth," Equinix said this week.
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Boosting Hyperscale Capacity in US
With the capital raised through the JV, Equinix expects the JV to purchase land to build new state-of-the-art xScale facilities on multiple greater-than-100-megawatt (MW) campuses in the US, eventually adding more than 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity for hyperscale customers.
"As the world's leading companies build out their infrastructure to support key workloads such as artificial intelligence, they require the combination of large-scale data center footprints optimized for AI training and interconnection nodes for the most efficient inferencing. Our xScale and IBX offerings are uniquely positioned to address this business need, enabling companies to realise the powerful potential of AI," said Equinix.
Under the agreement, Equinix will hold a 25 percent equity stake, while GIC and CPP Investments will each control 37.5 percent. Each party has made equity commitments, and the joint venture also expects to take on debt to raise the total pool of investable capital to more than USD 15 billion over time, the official release said.
Growing AI and Cloud Demands
Equinix's existing hyperscale joint venture portfolio in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas has a committed investment of over USD 8 billion, which is expected to result in greater than 725 MW of power capacity across more than 35 facilities at full buildout.
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Sustainability
All new xScale data centers will be built to high energy-efficiency standards and receive LEED certification or equivalent regional certifications. The joint venture is expected to formally launch after receiving all of the required regulatory approvals which are expected to be received in the fourth quarter of 2024.
