With data center facilities now at the forefront of innovation, Gaw Capital Partners, a real estate private equity management firm, has engaged itself with real estate specialist A3 Capital to form a JV platform with the aim to invest into greenfield and under-performing data centre assets across key markets in the Southeast Asia region to create a portfolio of Tier-3 certified data centre assets.
With this JV platform comes the launch of the Infinaxis Data Centre platform with a focus on developing Internet Data Centre (IDC) assets across the Southeast Asia region. The data centre assets under the JV platform will be managed by Infinaxis, staffed by an experienced data centre team originally under A3 Capital.
Kok Chye Ong the Managing Director and Head of IDC Platform, Asia (Ex-China) of Gaw Capital Partners said "Gaw Capital Partners is honored to work together with Infinaxis Data Centre Holdings as the platform operator. By forming this strong partnership, we will develop, acquire or reposition four to five data centres in different locations throughout Southeast Asia."
"The data centre demand in Malaysia is underpinned by strong internet traffic and high amount of data consumption. In recent years, the internet data growth in these areas have been further accelerated by the continued digital transformation of enterprises and 5G penetration."
The JV platform's first investment is located in Cyberjaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with other pipeline opportunities in other neighboring countries like Indonesia and Singapore. The JV platform will develop a 12 MW IT load IDC facility on one of the plots.
The IT capacity will potentially be doubled in the future, with the second plot to be developed as an expansion site. The data centre assets under the JV platform will be operated by Infinaxis, which consists of seasoned industry experts with decades long track records in data centre, real estate and technology industries.
"The Government is committed to growing Malaysia as a data centre hub by developing infrastructure, facilitating innovation and strengthening frameworks guided by the MyDigital Blueprint and National Investment Policy (NIP)," said Datuk Wira Arham Abdul Rahman, CEO of MIDA.
"Anchored by the National Investment Aspirations (NIA), the NIP will outline practical strategies to prioritise nurturing innovative, high-impact, high-tech investments that create high value jobs," added Datuk Wira Arham.
The JV platform is committed to incorporating ESG principles. Infinaxis plans to apply a staged implementation of more advanced sustainability features over time, considering the availability of options and unique circumstances at the respective sites. The data centres will be more efficient and sustainable, fundamentally making them more competitive which will increase the platform's long-term value.