Global Switch Australia is set to be sold to Australian asset manager HMC Capital for almost $1.94 billion.
The twin data centres, located adjacent to Sydney’s CBD, will be the seed assets in a digital infrastructure platform, owned by a real estate investment trust (REIT) that will list on the ASX.
The current capacity of Global Switch is 26MW but HMC said there is scope “to increase to 88MW” after a “densification and optimisation” project.
HMC said [pdf] it will raise about $300 million in equity as part of the purchase.
The company also has its eye on some North American hyperscale assets to add to the REIT.
Global Switch Australia’s foreign ownership has been a long-running problem particularly for government tenants at the site, with some making an exit, while others – such as Defence – having plans to do so.
Global Switch Australia’s executive chairman John Corcoran said in a statement that “given the recent challenges relating to ownership, we recognise that this is an appropriate time for the business to transition to Australian ownership to ensure its continued growth and success.”
The operation’s CEO Damon Reid said it was a “new chapter for Global Switch Australia” and lauded the intended site investment and upgrade.
“This extensive upgrade to our existing electrical and mechanical infrastructure includes increasing power densities and improving energy and water efficiencies for our customers as we approach 100MW of IT capacity,” he said.
“This upgrade to our Sydney campus will position us at the forefront of the latest customer demand for high performance computing and AI inference workloads.”
Reid added that “as a now wholly owned Australian company, we will continue to work closely with the Australian government on attaining the appropriate accreditation through the Hosting Certification Framework.”
Framework certification is used by departments and agencies “to identify and source hosting services that meet enhanced privacy, sovereignty and security requirements.”
