Funds managed by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Blackstone’s retail private equity strategy, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AirTrunk, a leading data centre platform in Asia Pacific, from Macquarie Asset Management and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board of Canada for an implied enterprise value of more than A$24 billion1 . This is Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia Pacific region. The transaction is subject to approval by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
AirTrunk is the largest data center platform in the Asia Pacific region, with a significant presence in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. It promises to provide customers with more than 800MW of capacity and has land to support future growth of more than 1GW in the region.
“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to invest in the sectors we value most,” said Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer. “The acquisition of AirTrunk is another important step in Blackstone’s quest to become a leading global investor in digital infrastructure, including the data center, power and related services ecosystem.”
Sean Klimczak, Global Head of Blackstone Infrastructure, and Nadeem Meghji, Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate, said: “ Digital infrastructure is experiencing unprecedented demand, driven by the AI revolution and the broader digitization of the economy. Prior to the acquisition of AirTrunk, Blackstone’s portfolio included $55 billion of data centers, including facilities under construction, and over $70 billion of potential follow-on development. We look forward to working with the outstanding AirTrunk management team to further accelerate its growth.”
Robin Khuda, Founder and CEO of AirTrunk, said: “ This transaction demonstrates the strength of the AirTrunk platform in a strong performing sector as we capitalize on the next wave of growth from cloud services and artificial intelligence and support the energy transition in Asia Pacific. We look forward to working with Blackstone and CPP Investments and benefiting from their scale capital, sector expertise and valuable networks across various local markets, which will help support AirTrunk’s continued expansion.”
It is expected that approximately $1 trillion in capital expenditures will be spent on building and facilitating new data centers in the United States over the next five years, and $1 trillion will be spent outside the United States. As a leading investor in data centers around the world, Blackstone is capitalizing on this trend. Blackstone has also invested in debt and equity in other data center companies, including as the owner of QTS, the world's fastest growing data center company, as well as Coreweave and Digital Realty. Blackstone is also focused on meeting the power needs of the industry in a variety of differentiated ways, including as an investor in power and utility companies, such as Invenergy, the largest independent renewable energy developer in the United States.
