AirTrunk raises AU$850m for Australian datacentre expansion
Aerial view of AirTrunk's Sydney datacentre
AirTrunk has announced the completion of an AU$850 million financing round to fund a major expansion of its Australian datacentres in both Sydney and Melbourne.
According to AirTrunk founder and CEO Robin Khuda, the expansion has been driven by customer demand for hyperscale datacentre solutions.
"We saw a substantial amount of global interest in AirTrunk throughout the process, and are delighted to complete this financing arrangement with Deutsche Bank. Together with the new capital recently contributed by our shareholders, the new funds put us in a strong position to meet the growing demand from large cloud, content, and enterprise customers in the Asia-Pacific region," Khuda said.
Deutsche Bank is the lead arranger, underwriter, and sole bookrunner for the new senior secured debt facilities, with shareholders, Goldman Sachs, and TSSP also contributing new capital to support the expansion plans.
AirTrunk opened its first Australian datacentre in Western Sydney in September last year.
The 34,500sqm datacentre in Huntingwood has a total capacity of more than 90MW. It boasts 1.15 PUE, 36 data halls, 29,000sqm of technical data hall area, and 5,500sqm of office and storage area.
Phase one of the build cost the company AU$200 million.
"It will be one of the largest carrier-neutral datacentres in the region, housing mission-critical infrastructure for some of the world's biggest companies," AirTrunk said at the time.
The company also claimed the datacentre was designed to comply with the Australian government's high-security requirements and is the "first step" in its wider growth strategy across the Asia-Pacific region.
See also: Seven cloud vendors lining up for government security clearance
AirTrunk in November opened its second Australian datacentre, in Derrimut in Western Melbourne, Victoria.
With a total capacity of more than 84MW of IT load across 34 data halls, the second local facility sits on top of 31,000sqm of floor space, comprised of 23,000sqm of technical data hall area and 8,000sqm of office and storage area. The company told ZDNet at the time it had invested more than AU$100 million into the datacentre.
"This will make AirTrunk Melbourne the largest carrier-neutral datacentre in Victoria, storing mission-critical infrastructure for some of the world's biggest companies," AirTrunk said while announcing the facility.
On Monday, AirTrunk claimed the two Australian facilities will be the largest independent datacentres in the Asia-Pacific region when completed, at 90MW and 84MW.
"AirTrunk continues to pursue its ambition to be the leader in hyperscale datacentres for the region. The expansion in Australia will establish AirTrunk as the largest datacentre operator in Australia by deployed capacity, and we continue to pursue aggressive growth opportunities across the Asia-Pacific region," Khuda added.
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