CPPIB Doubles Down on Australia Data Centres with $55M Investment in NextDC

Already a major investor in AirTrunk, Canada’s largest pension fund manager has upped its bets on digital infrastructure in Australia through an A$76 million ($55 million) investment in Brisbane-based NextDC, according to documents filed with the ASX last week.

As part of an A$1.5 billion entitlement offer by the data centre operator, The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired 36.75 million ordinary shares at A$12.70 per share, with the equity deal forming part of A$3.2 billion in fundraising by NextDC which includes another Canadian pension giant, La Caisse, last month buying A$1.7 billion in hybrid NextDC securities in a separate deal.

CPPIB has been building a data centre portfolio across Asia Pacific through a series of joint ventures and direct investments, including commitments in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, in addition to having taken a 12 percent stake in Blackstone’s $16.1 billion buyout of AirTrunk in 2024, with the fund’s leadership having pointed to attractive fundamentals for digital infrastructure in the region.

“The demand for data centres in Asia Pacific continues to grow due to the increasing need for data processing and consumption,” said Max Biagosch, CPPIB’s senior managing director and global head of real assets, in a statement accompanying the fund’s $1.3 billion commitment to Ares Management’s Japan data centre fund in June 2025.

Canadian Support

CPPIB acquired the bulk of its position in NextDC — 5.74 million shares — on 30 April, the settlement date for the data centre operator’s institutional entitlement offer, with the A$12.70 entry price matching the rate specified in NextDC’s entitlement offer announced on 20 April. 

CPPIB’s purchase put it across the five percent threshold which required NextDC to disclose the investment under Australia’s corporations law.

The entitlement offer was one half of a A$3.2 billion capital plan NextDC unveiled on 20 April, targeting A$1.5 billion in new equity to fund expansion plans tied to a surge in forward orders for new capacity, including around A$1.5 billion to accelerate development of a data centre campus in Sydney’s Horsley Park area.

“The scale of this increase in contracted utilisation and the resulting uplift in the company’s pro forma forward order book are unprecedented, underscoring the record levels of demand we continue to experience,” NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie said in announcing the funding round.

The institutional component attracted a 98 percent take-up rate from eligible shareholders, raising A$1 billion. A retail component targeting a further A$500 million closed on 11 May.

On 20 April, the same day that NextDC announced its equity fundraising, La Caisse said that it would upsize an A$1 billion commitment made earlier in the month with the Quebec provincial pension fund manager taking up A$1.7 billion in hybrid NextDC securities.

Global Digital Strategy

CPPIB’s investment in NextDC, following its earlier purchase of a slice in AirTrunk, aligns with a broader set of bets by Canada’s largest pension fund manager, which had C$777.5 billion ($572 billion) in assets under management as at 30 September. 

In June of last year Ares Management announced that CPPIB had committed $1.3 billion to its Japan DC Partners I fund, which reached a $2.4 billion final close that month on its way to developing three Greater Tokyo data centre campuses.

Also during 2025, CPPIB joined with Netherlands pension fund managers PGGM and APG, alongside CBRE Investment Management in backing a $2.7 billion Hong Kong data centre fund seeded with a 325MW set of assets in the city. 

Those deals last year came after CPPIB in 2024 formed a KRW 1 trillion ($714 million) joint venture with Pacific Asset Management Company to develop carrier-neutral hyperscale facilities in its second partnership with the Seoul-based manager, following a 2022 joint venture to develop a KRW 200 billion data centre outside the South Korean capital.

CPPIB also partnered with Goodman in 2025 to take on development of four data centres in Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam and has a US joint venture formed in 2024 with Singapore’s GIC and Equinix to develop $15 billion in hyperscale facilities.