DigitalBridge was awarded Direct Investor of the Year in North America, with judges impressed with its investment in Vantage Data Centers.

Judges noted that DigitalBridge had seized on the investment opportunity caused by the rise of AI and the growing need for data centers, which it has been investing in for over 15 years.

DigitalBridge, alongside Silver Lake, led Vantage Data Centers’ $9.2 billion equity investment. This reflects $2.8 billion upsize in capital raise to support global hyperscalers in meeting unprecedented cloud and AI demand. This means a total of $11 billion was raised over the past 9 months to drive $30 billion in data center development.

Vantage Data Centers operates co-location facilities across the globe but its biggest market is Northern Virginia. It provides data and power, while tenants bring their own servers.

Vantage has grown in recent years to own or control more than 25 sites in North America and EMEA totaling over 3GW of expected capacity. As part of the company’s investment plan, the new funding is expected to accelerate further growth by driving an estimated $30 billion of additional development, extending Vantage’s track record of bringing market leading capacity and innovative solutions to customers around the world. In connection with the investment, Vantage will continue its development of next-generation data centers, including energy-efficient and sustainable designs purpose-built for AI and large-scale cloud deployments.

During the judging period DigitalBridge’s digital infrastructure credit fund reached final at $1.1 billion in commitments, including co-investment capital. DigitalBridge Credit is the US-based fund manager’s first credit strategy. 

The fund has received both re-ups and support from new investors seeking exposure to infrastructure credit. Targeting debt investments across digital infrastructure, it has made 11 investments to date, encompassing:

• data centres
• fiber
• satellite broadband
• cloud infrastructure