Keppel Data Centre Fund II LP (KDCF II) and Heying, a subsidiary of Tianjin Zhengxin Group Co., have partnered to develop the Huailai Data Centre and transform it to a greenfield data centre.
In a bourse filing, Keppel noted that it would acquire a majority stake in Huailai Data Centre, for the project development which would cost $292 million (RMB 1.4 billion). In January 2022, KDCF II had secured 100 million USD of investments from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for strategic investments.
Huailai Data Centre is situated on a 3.3 hectare land plot, part of a larger data centre campus which spans 29.7 hectares.
Following the joint development project by Keppel and Heying, Huailai Data Centre will have a gross floor area (GFA) of 678 807 square feet, house over 5700 high-density racks, and will be built by Keppel and Heying to fit China Data Centre Class A GB0standard equivalent specifications.
Scaling Up to Meet Strong Demand for Data Centres
Keppel affirmed that the development of the Huailai Data Centre will be taking place in phases, and added that an unnamed major cloud service provider in China had already indicated its strong interest in the data centre.
Huailai Data Centre’s prime location in Greater Beijing, a data centre hub, also enhances its attractiveness to potential customers. Keppel observed that Greater Beijing’s data centre market reached a value of 30 billion yuan in 2020, with a 26% compound annual growth rate from 2016 to 2020.
Wong Wai Meng, Chief Executive of Keppel Data Centres, affirmed that “Keppel Data Centres’ strategy to work with strong experienced partners and in collaboration with Keppel Capital, enables us to harness synergies and scale up swiftly in developing and operating high quality data centres in our key growth markets.”
“This has helped place Keppel Data Centres in pole position to meet the requirements of cloud service providers, hyperscalers and technology firms in one of the world’s fastest growing markets, building on our strong data centre development and operational track record.”
This latest data centre development will be Keppel’s sixth project in China’s data centre market since 2020. Earlier this year, Keppel acquired two data centres in Guangdong, and officially opened the Huizhou Data Centre located in the Tonghu Smart City in Huizhou, Guangdong Province.
In accordance with Keppel’s commitment to sustainability and green energy, Keppel will be fitting the Huailai Data Centre with indirect evaporative cooling (IDEC) systems that will allow the data centre to consume 50% less energy as compared to conventional cooling systems.
The Huailai Data Centre will be fully developed by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
“Outstanding Data Center Projects” is an awards category for this year’s W.Media Asia Pacific Cloud & Datacenter Awards programme, where enterprise users and industry experts will come together to share their insights and opinions on data centre projects and innovations. If you are interested in nominating or sponsoring, visit our Awards Page for more information. Nominations are open until 31st July.
