A planned 54-megawatt data centre expansion in Cambridge, Ontario has secured $550 million in construction financing from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Deutsch Bank Private Credit & Infrastructure. The co-lenders will each contribute 50 per cent of the funding for the hyperscale facility to be developed by a trio global partners.

“The construction financing of this project marks another milestone in advancing our global data centre strategy and strengthens our presence in the Canadian market,” says Geoffrey Souter, head of real assets credit with CPP Investments.

The project is a joint venture of the data centre development and investment platform, Related Digital; data centre developer and operator, Ascent; and the investment management firm, TowerBrook Capital Planners. The facility expansion has already been pre-leased to a AI cloud compute provider on a long-term basis.

“The rapid expansion of digital infrastructure — driven by accelerating demand for cloud services, data storage, and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence — is fueling strong growth in data centre development,” Souter notes.