AirTrunk CEO Robin Khuda sold his company for $24 billion. Photo: Sutterstock

The Australian data centre company, founded less than 10 years ago, has been acquired by US financial giant Blackstone in a high-profile deal worth more than $24 billion.

It was confirmed overnight that AirTrunk, a Sydney-based company that operates 11 hyper-scale data centres, has agreed to be acquired by funds managed by Blackstone along with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) for an alleged enterprise value of more than $24 billion.

It is the largest acquisition by an Australian company this year and one of the largest acquisitions of a technology company in recent years.

AirTrunk builds and operates data centers that can meet the rapidly growing demands of cloud computing and AI in the Asia Pacific region.

The company currently operates 11 data centers: three in Sydney, one in Melbourne, three in Hong Kong, two in Tokyo, one in Johor Bahru (Malaysia) and one in Singapore.

The company prides itself on its ability to deliver scalable and sustainable data centers to large customers at significantly lower construction and operating costs than its competitors, becoming a dominant player in the Asia Pacific data center market.

AirTrunk currently has over 800MW of capacity available to existing customers and has land to enable future expansion in the region of over 1GW.

A $24 billion company in nine years

The company was founded by Robin Khuda, who emigrated from Bangladesh to Australia at the age of 18 in 2015.

Khuda will remain CEO of AirTrunk following the acquisition and will retain an ownership stake in the company.

“In 2015, I founded AirTrunk to pioneer scalable and sustainable large-scale data centers in the Asia Pacific region,” Khuda said in a statement.

“In less than a decade, we have built the largest platform in the region, with data centers in all major markets acting as essential digital infrastructure supporting the digital economy.

“Today’s announcement is a testament to the strength of our platform, vision, execution and team – experts and innovators who our customers trust to deliver and service, and who are passionate about ensuring that sustainability is at the forefront of how we finance, design, build and operate our data centers.”

^{AirTrunk’s Sydney HQ. Photo: Supplied}

Macquarie Asset Management and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board acquired an 88 per cent stake in AirTrunk in 2020.

Both companies sold all their shares in AirTrunk to a consortium led by Blackstone.

The transaction will still need to be approved by the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.

Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager, best known in Australia as the owner of Crown Resorts.

The purchase of AirTrunk is Blackstone’s largest investment in the Asia Pacific region.

“This is Blackstone at its best – leveraging our global platform to deliver on our most important purpose,” said Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray.

“AirTrunk is another important step in Blackstone’s journey to become the world’s leading investor in digital infrastructure across the ecosystem, including data centers, energy and related services.”

Fueling the AI ​​boom

In less than a decade, Khuda transformed AirTrunk from nothing into a $24 billion tech giant.

After arriving in Australia, Khuda completed his university studies and went to work with technology entrepreneur Bevan Slattery, from whom he learned about data infrastructure.

After launching in mid-2016, AirTrunk signed its first contract to build a data center but struggled to secure financing.

The first hyperscale data center was officially launched in 2017, and the company has been growing rapidly since then.

“This is just the beginning for AirTrunk as we continue to capitalize on the significant opportunities presented by the region’s dynamic digital future,” Khuda said.

Just last week, the company announced that the third phase of its new Sydney data centre had been completed ahead of schedule, adding an additional 30MW of computing power to the centre.

The massive acquisition rivals the largest ever sale of an Australian technology company, including Jack Dorsey’s Square acquisition of Afterpay in 2021 for $39 billion.

AirTrunk is regularly ranked among the best tech companies to work for in Australia.

The company was named one of the best mid-sized companies to work for in Great Place to Work 2023, and was also ranked 20th among mid-sized and large tech companies to work for in Australia.