MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s ACS and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners have created a joint venture to develop an initial €2 billion ($2.33 billion) data center portfolio of 1.7 gigawatts, the Spanish company said on Friday.
Both companies will have a 50% stake in the joint venture, ACS said. The operation will provide ACS with a capital gain of 100 million, he added.
The new development platform will include the existing portfolio of data center assets that ACS is developing in Europe, the US and Australia following its recent focus on building infrastructure to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
ACS said it is also reviewing a portfolio of potential projects exceeding 11 GW in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific that will form part of the joint venture.
Under the terms of the agreement, the partners will invest approximately one billion euros, plus an initial variable payment of up to one billion euros depending on a series of milestones linked to the commercialization of the projects.
An additional contingent payment of up to €200 million could also be obtained from projects currently under analysis, ACS said.
ACS said it has built more than 5.5 GW of data center capacity.
The news comes after the newspaper Expansión reported on Thursday that the companies were close to “reaching an agreement” on the matter.
According to Expansion, the association agreement could reach a value of 23,000 million euros, of which 5,000 million euros in share capital will be contributed progressively and 18,000 million euros in debt.
($1 = 0.8575 euros)
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo and Corina Pons; Editing by Jesús Aguado and Jan Harvey)