A consortium backed by BlackRock Inc. and Australian fund manager IFM Investors Pty has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire Stack Infrastructure Inc.'s Asia Pacific data center portfolio in a transaction valued between $20 billion and $25 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal, if completed, would represent the largest single infrastructure deployment targeting AI computing capacity outside North America in the current cycle.
Stack Infrastructure operates hyperscale data centers across Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and India—markets where power availability, not capital, is the binding constraint. The facilities under discussion include 2.1 gigawatts of contracted capacity, with an additional 800 megawatts in development across five metro areas. Singapore alone accounts for 600 megawatts of live capacity, making it the third-largest colocation footprint in the city-state after Equinix and Digital Realty. Stack's customer base skews heavily toward U.S. hyperscalers: Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services collectively represent approximately 68 percent of contracted revenue, per filings reviewed in the exclusivity process. The consortium is conducting final due diligence on power purchase agreements and land lease extensions, with a target close in Q1 2025.
This is not a bet on cloud growth. It is a bet on the geographic distribution of AI inference workloads and the permanent repricing of power-adjacent real estate in jurisdictions that can deliver 99.995 percent uptime at sub-8 cents per kilowatt-hour. BlackRock has deployed more than $11 billion into data center assets since January 2023, primarily through its Global Infrastructure Partners platform, which closed a $3.9 billion hyperscale fund in March. IFM, which manages $185 billion for Australian pension funds, has been underweight technology infrastructure relative to transport and utilities; this transaction would shift that allocation materially. The deal structure under discussion includes a sale-leaseback component for four greenfield sites in Japan and India, with Stack retaining operating control under a 25-year management contract. That arrangement allows the sellers—private equity firms including Arctos Partners and Brookfield Asset Management—to exit at a blended multiple of approximately 18 times trailing EBITDA, well above the 12 to 14 times range for traditional colocation assets. The premium reflects scarcity: there are fewer than 20 developable sites in Asia capable of supporting 100-megawatt-plus AI training clusters with direct access to subsea fiber and grid substations.
Allocators should watch three follow-on events. First, whether Microsoft or Amazon preempts the transaction by acquiring Stack outright, a scenario that was explored in July and remains permissible under exclusivity terms until October 15. Second, the outcome of Singapore's October data center moratorium review, which governs new capacity approvals and could materially affect valuation if extended beyond 2026. Third, BlackRock's filing behavior: if the consortium intends to take Stack private, a Form SC TO-I will surface within 10 business days of a definitive agreement, revealing co-investors and financing sources.
The transaction is expected to price at the high end of the range, $24.7 billion, based on current sponsor discussions. That number assumes full development of the India pipeline and no material degradation in Singapore's regulatory posture.
The takeaway
BlackRock and IFM are paying 18x EBITDA for Stack's Asia data centers, the clearest signal yet that AI inference geography commands a structural premium.
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