Vantage’s On Lok facility in northern Hong Kong’s Fanling area
Just over one month after Hong Kong passed a new national security law banning unlawful acquisition, possession or disclosure of information deemed to be state secrets, one of the US’ largest data centre operators is looking to sell its facilities in the city.
Denver-based hyperscale provider Vantage Data Centers is shopping its four Hong Kong data centres less than three years after acquiring the facilities from Hong Kong telecom operator PCCW, according to multiple market sources who spoke with Mingtiandi on Friday, confirming a report by Bloomberg.
The facilities are estimated to be worth $300 million to $500 million with Vantage, a unit of US private equity firm DigitalBridge, launching the sale effort as regulators globally begin to probe data centre operators over issues of “data sovereignty” and global investors show increasing caution regarding information controls in Hong Kong.
“Western companies have become more hesitant to establish or expand data centre footprints (in Hong Kong) due to heightened geopolitical concerns,” CBRE said in a report last year comparing digital infrastructure markets globally, with some of Vantage’s competitors having already transferred capacity away from the Chinese territory.
Growing in Asia, Shrinking in Hong Kong
The sale effort is said to be in the early stages with Vantage and DigitalBridge having not yet responded to inquiries from Mingtiandi by the time of publication.
Vantage Data Centres chief executive Sureel Choksi
The four data centres have a combined capacity of 35 megawatts (MW) with Vantage owning the operational facilities independent of the underlying real estate. DigitalBridge had acquired the assets as part of a $750 million deal in July 2021, just one month after the company changed its name from Colony Capital to reflect its shift from real estate to infrastructure strategies.
That deal three years ago included nine data centres spread across Hong Kong, mainland China and Malaysia with 75MW of capacity at the time. Vantage ranked as the world’s 19th largest data centre operator at the start of this year, according to a study by industry website Dgtl Infra, which tallied the number of facilities, commissioned power capacity in megawatts, portfolio size in operational square feet, and cloud or colocation revenue in US dollars, among other factors.
Vantage’s website currently lists four Hong Kong assets within its Asia Pacific portfolio, all of which are located in the New Territories. These include a 14MW facility in Fo Tan, another 14MW asset in Kwai Chung, and a pair of data centres with a combined capacity of 7MW in On Lok, with the four assets totaling 613,000 square feet (56,950 square metres) in floor area.
The Hong Kong assets are being put up for sale five months after Vantage ramped up its Asia Pacific operations with a pair of senior hirings, including Raymond Tong, former chief executive of Hong Kong-based data centre operator SUNeVision Holdings, who was appointed Asia Pacific President to oversee the firm’s strategy, expansion and operations in the region.
Within Asia Pacific, Vantage has earmarked $3 billion to develop a new 256MW campus in Cyberjaya that will be adjacent to its existing Cyberjaya campus, which is being expanded to accommodate a capacity of 31MW.
The company is also developing a 56MW campus in the city of Ibaraki near Osaka, a 48MW campus in Melbourne, and a 16MW facility in Taipei.
Data Sovereignty Concerns on the Rise
With governments among the top users of data centres, and many nations adopting regulations regarding where consumer or corporate data can be stored, concerns over keeping information within national boundaries have been on the rise globally.
In late 2022 Amazon Web Services, the largest data centre operator globally, acknowledged these concerns by issuing its “AWS Digital Sovereignty Pledge,” which guaranteed users of its cloud services control over the location of the servers holding their data.
In Asia Pacific, Macquarie Data Centres bought out a pair of Keppel DC REIT-owned facilities in its Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus in Sydney, pointing to the need to satisfy the expectations of a client base, “which values our Australian ownership, data security and sovereign credentials.”
Hong Kong had come under the rule of a mainland China security law covering the territory in 2020, with 31 percent of US company representatives responding to a survey published by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong during January indicating that the statute had a negative impact on their operations in the city.
The new law passed last month bans “obtaining, possessing or disclosing non-public information likely to endanger national security, including information on policy decisions, defence, international relations, the economic and social development of the city or the country [China], technological development and science,” with analysts concerned over the breadth of its prohibitions.
Other international data center operators have already shifted operations away from Hong Kong, including regional player BDx relocating its headquarters to Singapore in 2022.