London, 30 April 2021 – Committed investment in the data center infrastructure sector reached an estimated USD20.3 billion in the past month. Committed investment so far this year is averaging more than USD10 billion per month.

The most significant singular investment in dollar terms at USD 4.2 billion is the Pioneer Point Partners/Davidson Kempner scheme announced for a large-scale data center in Portugal by 2025 and first mover on a strategically important site for transatlantic cables such as Ellalink, which connects Europe to South America. 

The campus is to be located in the city of Sines, 150 km (93 miles) south of the capital Lisbon and will include five buildings with a capacity to supply up to 450 megawatts of energy from renewable sources. The Portuguese government plans to install a green hydrogen production hub at the location.

Another significant milestone was achieved by IPI Partners, LLC (IPI), a global investment platform focused exclusively on data centers and other technology and connectivity-related real assets, who closed its second fund at USD3.8 billion. IPI is co-sponsored by ICONIQ Capital, LLC and an affiliate of Iron Point Partners, LLC.

Over the last four and a half years, IPI has built a privately held data center portfolio with 480 megawatts (MW) leased and capacity for more than 880 MW. The company most recently closed the acquisition of SUPERNAP Italia, a Milan-based data center platform.

Market entry by logistics firm ESR of Hong Kong reveals the level of appetite for data centers remains extremely high and is extending beyond private equity players. The company has acquired an existing data center, land and build plans to build 2 additional facilities providing a total of 79MW for USD2.15 billion. 

The past month also recorded plans for massive commitments to sustained data center expansion expressed by both Microsoft and Apple.

According to research by Headwind Consultants, Asia Pacific attracted the highest investment this month at 34 per cent with notable expansion planned by Microsoft in Malaysia and the CapitaLand acquisition of four data centers in China, followed by Europe at 25 per cent.