Logistics real estate firm ESR Cayman has partnered with Stack Infrastructure for a new data center in Seoul, South Korea.
The two companies this week announced a joint venture to jointly develop a 48MW data center site in Incheon; construction of the single building will commence in Q1 2023 for a Q4 2024 completion date. The facility will be operated under the Stack brand.
Power to the facility has been secured from KEPCO.
“Stack’s opening of a fifth APAC market in 12 months, expanding on our recent developments in Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and Tokyo, enhances our focus on our customers’ strategic requirements by establishing a scalable presence in existing and emerging Tier 1 data center markets,” said Pithambar (Preet) Gona, Stack’s chief executive officer – APAC. “We are excited about our partnership with ESR, which illustrates our ability to work with market leading real asset managers, leveraging our combined expertise to the benefit of our customers."
Diarmid Massey, CEO of ESR Data Centres, added: “ESR’s strong regional capability and experience in Tier 1 data center markets ensures we are well-positioned to help develop facilities across critical hyperscale locations. Partnering with Stack enables us to leverage an outstanding global operating platform and innovative capital solutions to target hyperscale customer growth in key markets.”
ESR is one of a number of logistics & warehouse industrial real estate firms looking to move into the data center space. The likes of Prologis, GLP, Segro, P3, and others are also looking to develop facilities in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. ESR recently closed a $1 billion data center development fund and plans to build 300MW of data centers across APAC.
The group, with backing from investors such as Warburg Pincus, has plans to build a data center ecosystem across the region - buying a data center in Osaka in April 2021, which it plans to develop into a three-facility campus. It is in the process of converting a cold storage facility in Hong Kong into a 40MW data center, and announced plans for a 20MW data center in Tokyo earlier this year. ESR shareholders recently approved the $5.2 billion acquisition of ARA Asset Management; ARA has a data center footprint through its LOGOS Group subsidiary, which has partnered with Pure Data Centres for a 20MW facility in Indonesia.
Stack was launched by investment firm IPI Partners in early 2019 after merging former Infomart and T5 assets into a new wholesale colocation provider. Though traditionally focused on the US, Stack has recently made major moves to expand internationally. The company announced plans to expand into APAC in October 2021 and subsequently began development on a 36MW campus outside Tokyo, Japan. The company recently partnered with Australian real estate developer Hickory and is planning facilities in Melbourne, Perth, and Canberra.
