The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is providing $225-million toward a construction loan to expand a data centre in Cambridge, Ont., where Canadian artificial-intelligence company Cohere Inc. is a customer. <\/p>\n
The expansion of the existing data centre will add 54 megawatts of hyperscale capacity to a facility that previously generated only about six megawatts \u2013 giving it the kind of heavy-duty power that caters to companies training new, sophisticated AI models. That is enough energy to power tens of thousands of homes. <\/p>\n
The CPPIB investment will give it a 50-per-cent stake in a $450-million construction loan provided by lead lender Deutsche Bank AG, which is providing the rest of the loan through its private credit and infrastructure division. <\/p>\n
The expansion is a joint venture between U.S.-based data centre developers Related Digital and Ascent as well as investment manager TowerBrook Capital Partners, which has offices in New York and London.<\/p>\n
The Globe and Mail previously reported that U.S. company CoreWeave Inc. will operate the new facility<\/a>, with Cohere as a customer. <\/p>\n The site was originally a food distribution centre that BlackBerry Ltd. converted into a data centre more than a decade ago. The first phase of the expanded facility is coming online now, with two further phases expected to be completed by the summer of 2026.<\/p>\n The enlarged facility \u201cis a great example for us where we can invest on our home soil, in scale, in a space that really matters not just here in Canada, but really globally,\u201d Geoffrey Souter, CPPIB\u2019s head of real assets credit, said in an interview. <\/p>\n \u201cBut I think it\u2019s really just the tipping point of what\u2019s to come,\u201d he later added.<\/p>\n The booming demand for data centres has been an attractive investment opportunity for large pension funds and other major institutional investors. <\/p>\n Canada has limited inventory and its data centre market is \u201cvery fragmented,\u201d Mr. Souter said. But with increased demand for data sovereignty, a strong pool of talent and good fibre networks, \u201cwe\u2019ve got a lot of things that are really supporting growth,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The CPPIB manages $714-billion for the Canada Pension Plan and its 22 million plan members. Credit accounts for 11 per cent of the fund, and one-fifth of that \u2013 roughly $15-billion \u2013 is in bespoke loans to borrowers in real estate, infrastructure and sustainable energy. <\/p>\n The CPPIB has invested about $1-billion into digital infrastructure in Canada in the past 12 months, some of it as part of a consortium led by U.S-based Blackstone Inc. that bought a $7-billion minority <\/b>stake<\/a> in Rogers Communications Inc.\u2019s wireless infrastructure.<\/p>\n The CPPIB has data centre joint ventures and investments in Canada and the U.S., South America, Australia, Europe. Last fall, it formed a partnership to raise US$15-billion<\/a> with data centre owner Equinix Inc. to buy land and build new facilities in the United States.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Montreal-based eStruxture Data Centers raised $750-million for a novel data-centre securitization<\/a>, and replaced a separate bank loan facility to boost its borrowing capacity to $1.35-billion. <\/p>\n The federal government has made it a priority to build out AI infrastructure, and pledged to spend $2-billion<\/a> to support the industry last year. <\/p>\n