Swiss private equity firm Partners Group is to acquire Australian data center firm GreenSquareDC.

Announced last week, Partners Group said it will invest up to AU$1.2 billion (US$759m) in GreenSquare to establish the company as a “next generation data center platform.”

GreenSquare launched in October 2022 and the company is developing a data center in Perth, Western Australia. Located in Belmont, the four-story facility will offer 68,000 sqm (731,945 sq ft) of gross floor area on 38,000 sqm (409,030 sq ft) of land. Completion of the first stage is estimated by mid-2024. The company is also planning a wind and solar farm to power the Perth project.

Partners said GreenSquareDC recently acquired its first site in Sydney, a brownfield data center with an existing powered shell and an adjoining landbank that will enable the campus to expand to 96MW of compute capacity.

The company has also secured land options on several sites in strategic locations across Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.

Nicholas Kuys, managing director, Infrastructure Asia, Partners Group, said: “Data centers are on a structural growth path supported by thematic tailwinds, including the increasing use of generative AI, growth in cloud adoption, and the migration of data center workloads to colocation sites. GreenSquareDC represents an opportunity to back a talented management team in the growing Australian market.”

Walt Coulston, GreenSquareDC CEO, added: “Our customer-centric approach, efficient design, leading technology, and sustainability focus positions us well in the market. The acquisition of our first site in Sydney provides GreenSquareDC with a speed-to-market advantage in serving our customers’ near-term requirements. We look forward to working with Partners Group and leveraging its significant experience in building infrastructure platforms globally to scale our offering.”

Founded in 1996, Partners Group has more than US$150 billion in assets under management globally. Partners Group’s Infrastructure business manages US$27 billion in assets globally.

The firm said it has invested some $4bn in data centers since 2021, and has previously acquired Nordic data center firm atNorth and US operator EdgeCore.

Partners Group was advised by Clifford Chance and Alvarez & Marsal on the transaction.

Greensquare buys former IBM/Kyndryl site

As part of the acquisition announcement, GreenSquare said it would be expanding into Sydney.

On its website, the company said the first phase of the SYD1 site would reuse an existing data center building providing 20MV of power and 2,400 sqm (25,830 sq ft) of whitespace.

GreensquareDC said SYD1 will offer densities from 14kW fully air-cooled to 200kW+ hybrid liquid or immersion racks. The site is reportedly expandable with future greenfield development to 96MW.

GreenSquare didn’t disclose the address of the newly acquired facility, but images match 3 Brookhollow Avenue, a former IBM/Kyndryl facility in the Norwest Business Park.

Terms of the deal to take over the facility were not shared, nor were the details of when IBM and/or Kyndryl exited the site. Australian real estate group Dexus was the previous owner of the facility.

Norwest Business Park, a business park in the suburbs of Norwest and Bella Vista in the local government area of The Hills Shire in New South Wales, is home to multiple existing data centers including Vocus, AMEX, RBA & CBA. Local fiber connections in the park include Vocus, NextGen, TPG, and Telstra.

Kyndryl has exited or sold a number of data centers in recent years. It sold a data center in Auckland, New Zealand, to local operator T4 last year. NorthC acquired a Swiss data center outside Zurich from Kyndryl in a sale-leaseback deal in 2023. Keppel recently sold a former IBM/Kyndryl data center in Frankfurt, Germany.