Aware Super has committed A$460 million ($314.63 million) to the Skyline JV data center business to grow its digital infrastructure presence in the Asia Pacific region.
Leveraging Skyline JV’s access to global hyperscale data centers, the company indirectly owns Vantage Data Centers APAC which currently holds more than 10 large data facilities across Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
This deal is the latest collaboration between the A$210 billion ($143.59 billion) super fund and sector specialist DigitalBridge Group The two firms in 2023 co-invested in U.S.-located Switch data centers.
The transaction, representing more than 25% of Aware Super’s total infrastructure portfolio, brings the fund’s digital infrastructure investments to more than A$6 billion.
“Even though the APAC region is forecast to require up to 20 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2030 – driven by hyperscaler cloud deployments and Generative AI training workloads – the region remains underrepresented on data center deployments per capita, further highlighting the attractiveness of this opportunity,” said Aware Super’s head of infrastructure Mark Hector in a statement.
Aware Super is already invested in Australian specialist fiber optic and networks solutions provider Vocus, New Zealand’s third-largest telecommunications firm 2Degrees, U.S.-based hyperscale data center operator Switch, and European bandwidth infrastructure provider euNetworks.
Hector described the collaboration as foundational to the fund’s hybrid investment model.
“This is a compelling opportunity for Aware Super to gain exposure to the digitalization-driven high-growth APAC data center market, with the region covering 60% of the world’s population and projected to be the strongest growing cloud region,” he said.
DigitalBridge chief strategy officer Kevin Smithen said: “We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Aware Super in one of the fastest-growing data center markets globally.”
A version of this article originally appeared in our sister publication, Financial Standard, which like CIO is owned by ISS STOXX.
Tags: APAC, Asia-Pacific, Aware Super, data centers, Infrastructure