Chinese cloud & data center firm GDS Holdings is reportedly considering buying the data center business of Singaporean real estate firm GLP.

Bloomberg reports the deal could be value the assets at $8-10 billion, and see GLP become a shareholder in Shanghai-based GDS.

However, negotiations are at an early stage and the details could change or the deal could be called off altogether.

GDS raised $1.9 billion in a Hong Kong secondary listing last year, and CEO William Huang has previously said that the company plans to use the proceeds primarily to invest in data centers in China, Hong Kong, and possibly Southeast Asia, as well as M&A opportunities in China and beyond.

According to GLP’s site, the company is developing the GLP Huailai Internet Data Centre in Hebei, Northern China. The company has invested RMB 10 billion ($1.5 billion) in the facility, with the first phase of development providing 4,000 cabinets accommodating up to 60,000 servers. When fully built out, the data center will offer more than 15,000 cabinets and 200,000 servers.

Earlier this year, the company said that it had built "a competitive data infrastructure business" after investing in Chinese data centers from 2018. "GLP’s data center business is focused on the core, backbone nodes of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Greater Bay Area."

The company added: "GLP’s full service data center platform is led by an experienced team of professionals skilled in the entire data center lifecycle – from site selection and land sourcing to power supply, design and operations. By using innovative green and renewable strategies, our data centers are designed to be some of the most environmentally-friendly and carbon-efficient in the industry."

A sponsored article in Pere magazine claimed GLP had built a team of 200 to develop data centers, hiring from companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. In 2019, GLP acquired a 60 percent stake in local data center company Cloud-Tripod.