Digital Realty Trust: Digital Realty plans new hyperscale JV with Blackstone

Digital Realty recently revealed plans to set up a joint venture with Blackstone-affiliated funds led by Infrastructure, Real Estate, and Tactical Opportunities. This joint venture worth $7 billion will be used to develop four hyperscale data center campuses in Frankfurt, Germany; Paris, France; and Northern Virginia, North America. 

Andy Power, president and CEO of Digital Realty said, "By partnering with Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, Digital Realty is better able to deliver capacity to meet the burgeoning demand of our hyperscale customers, by accessing a deep pool of likeminded private capital. Digital Realty is focused on executing on the sizable opportunity that lies ahead, and this partnership helps to accelerate the monetization of nearly 20 percent of our industry-leading land bank.”

Jon Gray, president and COO of Blackstone, added, “Data centers are experiencing once-in-a-generation demand growth, driven by cloud adoption and the AI revolution. Digital infrastructure is one of our highest conviction investment themes as a firm, and this transaction with a trusted data center operator in Digital Realty is another example of how we are investing behind this trend.”

Blackstone will acquire an 80 percent ownership interest in the joint venture for approximately $700 million of initial capital contributions, while Digital Realty will maintain a 20 percent interest.