Growth on radar for AirTrunk as market expands 40pc a year
Macquarie-backed AirTrunk is already on the hunt for fresh sites for new data centres to accommodate surging demand, said chief executive Robin Khuda at the launch of the operator’s fifth hyperscale facility on Monday in Sydney’s northern suburbs.
In his first interview since the Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets led consortium bought most of the business last April, Mr Khuda confirmed AirTrunk was also on track to open its Tokyo data centre by December.
Mr Khuda said AirTrunk was continually assessing new opportunities in its existing “tier one” locations of Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“We are looking at emerging markets as well,” Mr Khuda said. “We have a site solutions team and they are looking at multiple markets.”
However, he emphasised that AirTrunk’s expansion plans were entirely in the hands of its clients, none of which he was prepared to identify though it is believed they include household names in cloud-based services.
Mr Khuda said the business relied on a small cohort of large global companies that informed AirTrunk where and when they needed additional capacity.
Demand for cloud services was increasing by 40 per cent year on year and even higher in less mature Asian markets such as India and Indonesia.
However, finding the right land was a complex issue and locations were also partly determined by the local electrical grid capacity – data centres devour power.
The first phase of AirTrunk’s second Sydney data centre (known as SYD2) is in Lane Cove, near one of the the city’s major technology business precincts at Macquarie Park, and has more than 110 megawatts of capacity.
SYD2 is powered by a dedicated 200MVA 132kV substation, one of the largest in NSW, and features an “industry-first” cooling system that uses 90 per cent less water than standard systems.
There is further scope to expand SYD2, with plans for another three buildings on the 4-hectare site beside the Lane Cove River.
Looking ahead, Mr Khuda said: “For us it’s about growing our platform. Macquarie has a really good footprint in Asia and we’re leveraging a lot of their relationships to grow our platform to different parts of Asia.
“They’re a very supportive shareholder and the business has grown significantly since they invested. We don’t have specific plans, you know, like an exit.
“The whole capital market is pretty good, cost of debt is cheap, there is a lot of capital in the market, we just want to continue to grow.”
