Ascenty to invest US$750mn in regional datacenters

Brazil-based datacenter company Ascenty, controlled by US group Digital Realty, will invest 4bn reais (US$750mn) over three years in Latin America.

The amount also finances the construction of datacenters in Mexico and Chile, CEO Chris Torto (pictured) told BNamericas.

Of the total, 1bn reais referred to 2019 investments, over 1.2bn reais is the projected capex for this year and over 1.5bn reais are expected to be spent in 2021.

The group is building two datacenters in Chile and two in Mexico.

According to Torto, the first Chilean facility, announced in April last year, is scheduled to open in October. This will be the group’s first datacenter outside Brazil. A second Chilean facility is expected to be activated by the end of 2021.

Covering a combined 24,000m2, the units in Santiago will have load capacity of 30MVA.

Meanwhile in Mexico, the company is investing US$300mn in two new datacenters in Querétaro state. Each unit will cover 24,000m2 and have load capacity of 30MVA.

One unit will open early next year and another in the last quarter of 2021, with terrain preparations set to begin in August, Torto said.

“Both the facilities in Mexico, as well as those in Chile, boost business opportunities and expand our capillarity of operations, reinforcing the position of Ascenty and Digital Realty, and are in line to support leading global cloud providers’ growth,” accordig to Torto.

In addition to the Mexican and Chilean facilities, Ascenty announced this month the start of operations of a third datacenter in São Paulo.

The 3,000m2, 4MW center will cost 150mn reais and will serve retail customers and telecommunications operators, in line with the company’s strategy of expanding the participation of medium and large companies.

“We are oriented to expand our offer of colocation services, in order to meet the high demand of the sector for infrastructure, which grows along with the market for cloud providers and technological innovations,” according to the executive.

With the third São Paulo facility, Ascenty will have 22 datacenters in the three countries, 15 of which in operation. 

In 2018 the company had eight units installed nationwide.

On further expansion, Torto said Ascenty has been looking primarily at Colombia, although no concrete plans for a unit in the country exist yet.

FIBER AND PANDEMIC EFFECTS

Ascenty operates 4,770km of proprietary fiber optics interconnecting its facilities: 4,500km for its 18 datacenters in Brazil, 120km in Chile and 150km in Mexico. Torto said Chilean and Mexican networks will also be expanded to connect the new facilities.

The company ensures direct connectivity to the main global cloud providers and with the submarine cables landing in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza.

“We are also investing in expanding our network in Chile and Mexico, but we are not going to integrate these networks into international submarine cables for now,” Torto said.

According to the executive, the pandemic accelerated the need for cloud solutions and data storage, accelerating major cloud projects that were expected to be closed only in October and November this year.

As result, the company expects growth of over 50% in Latin American revenues this year. “Very few companies can register this rate.”

ACQUISITIONS AND TELCOS

Founded in 2010, Ascenty was bought by Digital Realty in 2018 with Brookfield Infrastructure as the chief investment vehicle. And Digital Realty has deep pockets to support acquisitions, development and expansion plans.

In March, the group completed the acquisition of InterXion, a Dutch-based provider of carrier and cloud-neutral colocation datacenter services, for US$8.4bn to expand its footprint in European metro areas.

Asked if Ascenty were interested in datacenters being divested by telecom operators – the latest of which being Brazil's Oi – Torto said telco facilities are too small or have insufficient cooling and power generation for the group’s purposes.

“We've looked at these structures, but operators' datacenters are not suitable to meet our needs. So we are probably not going to buy any of these assets and we'll continue to focus on building the large, world-class datacenters we are making.”