GIC and Equinix tie up to develop six European hyperscale data centres

The six facilities will provide 155MW of power capacity when fully developed.

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and data centre firm Equinix have agreed to enter into an 80:20 joint venture (JV) to acquire and develop six hyperscale data centres in Europe for more than $1.36b (US$1b), an announcement revealed.

The venture will acquire two operational data centres in London and Paris, which together deliver approximately 31MW of critical power to customers. The parties plan to further develop four data centres in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London.

When fully developed, these initial six facilities will reportedly provide approximately 155MW of power capacity. Equinix will develop, operate, and manage the data centres.

Also read: Singapore's data centre capacity to hit 380MW by 2022

According to Lee Kok Sun, GIC Real Estate’s CIO, the strong growth in data consumption and public cloud data storage will continue to drive secular demand for hyperscale data centres.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q3 2019.