Goodman Property Trust (GMT) is setting up a new NZ$300 million ($185 million) fund to build data centers in Auckland, New Zealand.

GMT, the New Zealand-based arm of global real estate investor Goodman Group, expects the value of the fund to grow to NZ$2 billion ($1.23 billion) over the next three to five years.

The company is in the process of establishing an internal fund management arm. If this restructuring is approved by shareholders, it will launch the Auckland-based property fund.

James Spence, chief executive of GMT, told RNZ: "Alongside what we do at the moment, which is buying, redeveloping, and building high-quality logistics assets. We're also looking at the possibility of data centers in Auckland. The characteristics of a data center are quite similar in shape, size, and location as warehouse and logistics spaces."

Spence said that the company is looking at “about 50 hectares” of brownfield, last-mile industrial sites in South Auckland, but did not provide further details on precise locations.

“We're investigating the possibility for data center development," he said. "There are two things that global investors are looking for at the moment - industrial and data centers and we think our portfolio will be pretty attractive to those seeking to invest in the Auckland market.”

Goodman does not currently have any data center properties in New Zealand but has been actively building out its portfolio in Asia and beyond. An operational update released by the company in November said it had 4GW of potential data center capacity in its pipeline, claiming this opportunity was worth tens of billions of dollars.

Since then it has committed to developing 1GW of data center capacity in Tsukuba City, Japan, and it revealed it has also started construction of a new 50MW data center in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong.

Earlier this month it said it was planning to invest $1.4 billion in redeveloping the former ABC television studios in Sydney, Australia, into a data center.

Microsoft and Amazon are among the companies operating data centers in the Auckland region.