Private-equity investors are currently most focused on large-scale hyperscale and wholesale colocation campuses, especially those that can secure power and land in constrained but high-growth metros. These assets offer strong visibility on returns through long-term, take-or-pay leases with hyperscalers whose AI-driven capex is expanding rapidly. Investors also favour interconnection-rich retail campuses (such as carrier hotels) because of their sticky customer base and premium margins, though such opportunities are scarce and often expensive. A fast-growing area of interest is AI/HPC-ready high-density facilities (those designed for 100–300 kW racks and liquid cooling), because they can command price premiums for specialised capacity. Across all of these, control over power availability is emerging as the key differentiator for value creation.
By contrast, edge data centres attract more selective attention. They can be attractive where there is a contracted anchor customer or clear, localised demand, but most PE firms see them as fragmented and harder to scale. Overall, private capital is concentrating on platform-style investments in campuses that combine access to power, strong tenant pre-leasing, and scalability for AI-driven workloads, prioritising markets with low vacancy and power bottlenecks that support rental growth.
