The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is forming a joint-venture with Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund GIC and Equinix to develop data centres in the U.S.

Toronto-based CPPIB, the Singaporean fund and Redwood City, Calif.-based Equinix announced plans Tuesday to raise US$15 billion for the JV. Pending regulatory approvals of its formation, the new JV will purchase land to build new Equinix xScale facilities on campuses with more than 100 megawatts of capacity.

CPPIB and GIC are slated to own 37.5% each, while, Equinix would control the remaining 25% of the JV.

Equinix is an experienced global data-centre developer. Its xScale data centres cater to some of the world’s largest cloud-computing providers, including hyperscalers.

The company is investing with CPPIB for the first time. Equinix and GIC have a longstanding relationship, having partnered on xScale projects in Asia, the Americas and Europe.

All three partners plan to invest undisclosed amounts of their own equity, and the JV expects to take on debt to raise the total investable capital pool to US$15 billion over time. The goal is to add 1.5 gigawatts of new capacity for hyperscale customers eventually.

The JV aims to capitalize on increasing artificial-intelligence and cloud-computing growth. The partners intend to accelerate the development of the Equinix xScale data-centre portfolio, which enables hyperscale companies to add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix International Business Exchange data centres.

At full buildout, the JV will almost triple the Equinix xScale data-centre program’s investment capital, said the U.S. company.

“This investment will help meet the increasing demand for data centres driven by rapid technological advancements and marks a significant step forward in our broader data-centre strategy,” said Max Biagosch, senior managing director and global head of real assets and head of Europe for CPP, in a news release.

The JV deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024.

In September, CPPIB and U.S.-based global investment giant Blackstone agreed to acquire Australian data-centre operator AirTrunk from Melbourne-based Macquarie Asset Management and the Toronto-based Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

The deal values Sydney-based AirTrunk at an enterprise value of C$29.1 billion (A$24 billion.)

Photo: Equinix

Rendering AirTrunk