Sydney, September 4, 2024 – AirTrunk was acquired by Blackstone and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) in an all-time historic 24 billion dollar deal.
This is a significant milestone, as it represents Blackstone’s conviction towards some of the most basic but core areas of global industrial development – data centers.
The integration of AI and cloud technologies is witnessing a demand that necessitates a focus on infrastructure development. With further regulatory clearances on the foreign acquisition by Blackstone, this deal stands as the largest penetration of Blackstone into the Asia-Pacific region.
AirTrunk’s market presence extends to Australia, Japan, and Singapore, and management intends to enhance operational efficiency since the land resources and the 800MW capacity allow such expansion.
“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to capitalize on our highest conviction theme,”
Said Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone. One of the firm’s priorities in the future will be to dominate the economies of the world when integrating the new cross-industry layer of AI into the business models.
Taking the investment further, Blackstone also announced and positioned itself to invest in AirTrunk as a part of its data centers aiming for a value of $55 billion with more in the pipeline.
“The demand for digital infrastructure is at an all-time high courtesy of AI and machines,”
Remarked Sean Klimczak, Head of Blackstone Infrastructure globally and Nadeem Meghji, Global Co-head of Blackstone Real Estate.
This acquisition will empower AirTrunk to leverage Blackstone’s assets and expedite the penetration of the company into Asia-Pacific markets.
AirTrunk’s chief executive officer Robin Khuda shared this encouraging news as well, linking the platform’s value creation potential to cloud platforms with high AI applicability and the energy transition.
“This transaction evidences the strength of the AirTrunk platform in a strong performing sector,”
Khuda remarked, adding there would be more value creation with Blackstone and CPP’s backing in the future.
As data center capital expenses are expected to hit about 1 trillion dollars in a few coming years, it must be known that Blackstone’s buying decision affirms operative and long-term goals targeting AI-powered digital infrastructure and power solutions in many parts of the globe.
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