Vantage Data Centers Commits $1.6 Billion to Asia-Pacific

Denver, Colorado-based Vantage Data Centers is deepening its foothold in the Asia-Pacific market.

The U.S.-based firm just completed an equity investment of $1.6 billion in its Asia-Pacific platform, Entrepreneur reported. Part of that investment, led by an affiliate of Singapore’s GIC sovereign wealth fund and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, went to Vantage’s latest acquisition in the region: Sedenak Tech Park, a hyperscale data center in Johor, Malaysia developed by Yondr Group.

Sedenak Tech Park, located about an hour from Singapore, is a fast-growing data center cluster that has become a release valve for the island nation’s capacity constraints. The campus, known as JHB1, spans nearly 73 acres and is slated for three data centers boasting more than 300 megawatts of IT capacity once complete.

JHB1’s location in the Johor Singapore Special Economic Zone will prove to be an advantage, as Vantage’s new data center campus will benefit from strong connectivity supported by dark fiber routes and proximity to regional hubs like Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.

Operators have flocked to the area as Singapore’s de facto data center moratorium and phased re-openings hampered data center growth and pushed demand across the border with Malaysia. Because land is so limited in Singapore, building in places like Malaysia offered more land for large-format campuses with room to expand.

The JHB1 addition boosts Vantage’s operational and planned capacity in the Asia-Pacific market to roughly 1 gigawatt across Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That puts the Denver-based operator in the same conversation as other global hyperscale builders racing to meet artificial intelligence-driven power demand.

Though data centers are known for being energy vampires, JHB1 is poised to incorporate power-saving techniques like direct-to-chip liquid cooling to help keep power use down. The campus was originally financed with a green loan and is on its way toward EDGE certification as a green development. Singapore itself is committing to a green-energy data center push with plans for a 700-megawatt facility on Jurong Island, the country’s largest low-carbon data center park.

Vantage Data Centers is betting on long-term demand from global cloud and AI tenants with its $1.6 billion investment, and its acquisition of the JHB1 site services as an indication of its commitment to such endeavors. The firm currently operates digital infrastructure for global cloud and AI service providers across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

— Chris Malone Méndez