Ashburn: Data Center Alley: AREP to invest in six data centers

American Real Estate Partners (AREP) has announced that, with Harrison Street, it is investing $1bn (€864m) in six data centres in the US. According to reports, this development plan will total 2.1m sqft of data centre space in Data Center Alley in Ashburn and Arcola, Virginia.

Speaking about the decision to expand the company's data center portfolio, Doug Fleit, AREP's CEO, said that it has been in response to the growing demand for more data centers due to society's move towards a more technologically integrated life.

He said: "Every aspect of our lives is changing whether it is more connectivity with 5G and more robust streaming entertainment and communications, the inclusion of new augmented reality applications like Meta, self-driving cars and an endless evolution of new technologies and applications." Adding: "We are creating not just exponentially more data but new and ever more useful ways to apply that data. All of this speaks to a long term data centre trend for markets like Ashburn, Virginia."

Meanwhile, Michael Hochanadel, MD and head of digital real estate at Harrison Street, commented: "Digital real estate is a core pillar of Harrison Street's demographically driven investment strategy, and we are thrilled to significantly expand our presence in the world's most active data centre market."

Further to this, he said the investment and partnership with AREP will provide the company with "unique data centre campuses" and "immediate scale in an attractive network-dense region ensuring hyperscale cloud providers and high-quality colocation operators have the capacity they need to support their customers."