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Behind the Deal: AirTrunk, Data Centers and Blackstone’s Digital Infrastructure Strategy

January 15, 2025

Global Head of Infrastructure Sean Klimczak and Global Co-Head of Real Estate Nadeem Meghji discuss Blackstone’s recent acquisition of AirTrunk, the largest data center platform in Asia.

January 15, 2025

Air Trunk

Our lives have been moving online for decades, driving unprecedented demand for data centers. Since 2019, demand for these assets – which house servers, data storage hardware, routers and other networking equipment – has grown 17x.[ 1 ] Yet the advent of AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, and Sora will only intensify this demand in the coming years. A single prompt using these tools can require exponentially more compute power than a standard Google search.

Blackstone is now the largest data center provider in the world, thanks in part to our recent A$24 billion acquisition of AirTrunk – the leading data center platform in the Asia-Pacific and our largest-ever transaction in the region. We sat down with Blackstone’s Global Head of Infrastructure, Sean Klimczak, and Global Co-Head of Real Estate, Nadeem Meghji, to learn more about the deal.

What drew Blackstone to start investing in data centers – and to AirTrunk specifically?

Nadeem Meghji: Since 2010, global data created, consumed and stored has grown 101x [ 2 ] – an explosion driven by trends like social media, cloud computing, video streaming and artificial intelligence. All this data needs a place to live, and at Blackstone, we saw an opportunity to invest behind these trends by backing some of the world’s largest data center platforms.

explosive growth data transparentSource: International Data Corporations (IDC), as of May 2024. 2024 and 2025 represent year-end estimates.

In 2021, we acquired US and European data center provider QTS in the largest transaction in data center history at the time – a US$10 billion take-private. Since then, growing demand and tighter supply constraints have driven market rents up by 84%.[ 3 ] Against this backdrop, we’ve invested significant capital to build QTS into the fastest-growing data center company in the world. In the first three and a half years under our ownership, QTS grew in size by more than 900%.[ 4 ] We’ve also launched Lumina CloudInfra, a data center provider in India, and established a joint venture with data center provider Digital Realty to help build four hyperscale data center campuses across two continents.

Sean Klimczak: These transactions were the precursor to our A$24 billion acquisition of AirTrunk. After launching in 2015, founder and CEO Robin Khuda and the AirTrunk team scaled the company into Asia-Pacific’s largest data center provider (two times larger than its closest competitor), with assets in Australia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.[ 5 ] Through this vast data center network, AirTrunk is now also the largest Asian data center partner to the biggest and fastest-growing global cloud businesses.

Robin and his management team are excited to partner with Blackstone on AirTrunk’s continued expansion, with the goal of growing into an A$100 billion business.[ 6 ] Blackstone’s experience with QTS demonstrated to AirTrunk that we truly understood their industry and could help them scale. Our ability, as one controlling party, to speak for all the capital required to complete the transaction – and to drive future growth – differentiated us from competitors.

Nadeem Meghji: I’ll add that our deep ties in the region and local presence also played a role. Blackstone’s business has grown significantly in Asia-Pacific, with particular momentum in places like India, Japan and South Korea. And our portfolio company, Crown Resorts – a leading gaming and entertainment business – is the largest hospitality employer in Australia.[ 7 ] We’re proud of these local economic contributions and excited to build on them as we help AirTrunk grow.

You each represent different businesses within Blackstone. Tell us about the collaboration this deal required.

Nadeem Meghji: This transaction is an example of Blackstone at its best, demonstrating how different businesses and global teams came together, working around the clock to execute such a large and complex investment. As Mike Forman, Greg Blank, Mike Diverio, and the rest of the team in the US would log off each evening, we would hand off the baton to Peng Wei Tan in Singapore, Chris Tynan in Sydney and our many colleagues across team Asia. In the morning, they’d pass it back to us. Together, it was pretty amazing to see how much we could get done in a short period of time.

Sean Klimczak: It has been humbling to play a part and get to work with so many talented and hard-working people. It takes a village, and our ability to collaborate and activate all of the capabilities across the firm and around the world were truly key to making this transaction happen.

Where to from here – both for AirTrunk and for Blackstone? What’s next in the digital infrastructure space? 

Nadeem Meghji: AirTrunk’s runway is enormous. Its leasing pipeline has grown dramatically since early 2024, and it owns developable land that can support over 1 gigawatt (GW) of future growth across the region. We’re helping the company expand its capabilities within existing markets, explore entry into new ones and continue to act as a leader on sustainability.
 
As for Blackstone, we’re really just getting started. Our portfolio consists of $70 billion of data centers, including facilities under construction, and over $100 billion in our prospective development pipeline. Our goal is to be the world’s largest investor in AI infrastructure, acting as a trusted solutions provider to some of the largest and most valuable companies across the globe.

Sean Klimczak: And that means a lot more than just data centers. AI infrastructure encompasses everything from the cell towers that transmit content from the data center to your phone; to the hardware within the data centers; to the power systems and renewable energy that keep it all up and running.
 
Blackstone has already made investments in each of these areas across its businesses. In 2022, we invested in Invenergy, the largest privately held renewable company in North America. More recently, we led one of the largest private debt financings in history through our investment in CoreWeave, which builds and operates the graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure used to train and deploy AI models. We see investments like these as the essential infrastructure of the 21st century. 

Building the Future: Megatrends and Investment Themes

Investing in AI

The Convergence of Data Centers and Power: A Generational Investment Opportunity

Opinions expressed reflect the current opinions of Blackstone as of the date appearing in the Materials only and are based on Blackstone’s opinions of the current market environment, which is subject to change. Certain information contained in the Materials discusses general market activity, industry or sector trends, or other broad-based economic, market or political conditions and should not be construed as research or investment advice.

Certain of the information contained in this article has been obtained from portfolio companies and/or sources outside Blackstone, and could prove to be incomplete or inaccurate and is current only as of any specific date(s) noted therein. Blackstone makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the information obtained from such portfolio companies and/or sources and neither Blackstone nor any of its affiliates takes any responsibility for, and has not independently verified, any of such information. Unless otherwise stated, references to sustainability initiatives, priorities or practices at portfolio companies are not intended to indicate that Blackstone has materially contributed to such actions and such initiatives, priorities, or practices are subject to change, even materially, over time. Further, neither Blackstone’s provision of this article, nor any information contained therein, is to be construed as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to purchase, any security. This content is provided for informational purposes only and there is no guarantee that Blackstone will invest in similar opportunities in the future.

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