Global alternative investments firm Ares Management has secured 350 billion yen ($2.4 billion) for its debut fund dedicated to data centres in Japan.
The vehicle, Japan DC Partners I, will invest in the development of three data centre campuses in Greater Tokyo, expected to deliver nearly 240 MW of IT load collectively, the firm said in a statement.
Limited partners in the fund include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which invested about $1.3 billion, and GLP Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based developer, owner, and operator of industrial and logistics real estate and digital infrastructure.
The three complexes will be developed by Ada Infrastructure, the data centre business that was part of Ares’ $3.7-billion acquisition of GLP Capital Partners’ international business. That deal, completed in March this year, allowed Ares to expand significantly into the digital infrastructure sector in Asia.
Last year, Asia Pacific saw a record new capacity of 1,622MW going live, with a further 14.4GW in the development pipeline, according to industry analysts. However, as much of the current supply in the region is not yet designed to support artificial intelligence servers, developers are racing to build out new, investment-grade capacity to fill the gap.
On its part, Ares noted that with Japan home to one of the world’s largest data centre hubs, there remain additional investment opportunities in the sector in the longer term.
Asia special situations fund
Separately, the firm is reported to be in the market for its next Asia-focused special situations fund. Bloomberg reported that the manager is expecting the new vehicle to be no smaller than its predecessor, which closed at $2.4 billion in 2023.
Ares raised $93 billion in new funds in 2024 and has nearly $550 billion in assets under management globally, across its strategies that span private equity and secondaries, real assets, and credit.
