A consortium of companies including Mount Elbert from Colorado, U.S.A, GIC from Singapore and OPTrust from Canada, have launched a data center investment firm by the name EdgeCore Internet Real Estate to provide data center facilities to businesses in North America. With this launch, the consortium, which has invested a total of USD 2 billion in the project, seeks to build six data center facilities across North America.
The consortium say that venturing into the data center market came as a result of witnessing a strong need for data center services in the North American region and a shared vision for building scalable data centers. They also claim that they have already responded to this demand by land acquisitions in the region, including Mesa near Phoenix in the U.S.
Explaining the same, Tom Ray CEO of Mount Elbert, who will take up the position of CEO and Chairman at EdgeCore, said:
We are excited to execute upon our shared vision of creating a scalable North American data center platform and we look forward to expanding with GIC and OPTrust as we work to grow EdgeCore Internet Real Estate beyond our initial roll out.
Echoing Ray’s thoughts, Lee Kok Sun, CIO at GIC Real Estate, added:
GIC is pleased to partner with Mount Elbert and OPTrust in this venture. As a long-term value investor, we believe the secular growth in data consumption and public cloud usage will generate attractive returns in the data center sector.
Speaking about their plans ahead, the consortium say that they are planning to close the land acquisition deals for sites at Dallas and Reno by the end of Q1 2018. They also say that with these deals closed, they will start building facilities in these acquired facilities.