Funds managed by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Blackstone’s private equity strategy for individual investors – along with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Asia-Pacific data centre (DC) platform AirTrunk from Australia’s Macquarie Asset Management and Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, for an implied enterprise value of over A$24 billion (US$16.16 billion).

This represents US-based Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia-Pacific region. The transaction is subject to approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.

AirTrunk is the largest DC platform in the Asia-Pacific region, with a sizeable presence in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. It has more than 800 megawatts of capacity committed to customers and owns land that can support over 1 gigawatt of future growth across the region.

Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, has invested in both the debt and equity of other DC companies, including as owner of QTS, the fastest-growing DC company in the world, Coreweave and Digital Realty.

The asset manager is also focused on addressing the sector’s power needs in many differentiated ways, including as an investor in power and utility companies, such as Invenergy, the largest independent renewables developer in the United States.

“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to capitalize on our highest conviction theme,” says Jon Gray, the company’s president and chief operating officer. “AirTrunk is another vital step as Blackstone seeks to be the leading digital infrastructure investor in the world across the ecosystem, including data centres, power and related services.”