Singapore’s Keppel Capital builds its second Greater Bay Area data centre in Huizhou, rising on city’s infrastructure building spree

Keppel Capital, the asset management arm of Singapore’s conglomerate Keppel Group, has agreed to invest 1.5 billion yuan (US$213.8 million) to build a data centre in Huizhou, boosting the city’s ambition to create the IT backbone for southern China’s Greater Bay Area.

The data centre, located in Tonghu Smart City, an industrial complex developed by Country Garden Holdings, will have gross floor area (GFA) of 45,000 square metres (486,700 square feet) when construction is completed in 2022, according to a statement. Alpha Data Centre Fund, managed by Keppel Capital’s wholly-owned subsidiary Alpha Investment Partners, is responsible for the data centre project in Tonghu.

The GBA, a cluster of 11 cities in southern China including Hong Kong and Macau, is estimated to have a combined economic output of US$1.5 trillion, which would make it the world’s 13th-largest economy after South Korea if it were a stand-alone entity. Total population in the area is projected to grow to 100 million by 2035, from the current 70 million.

Alpha Investment said it would collaborate with data centre operator Shenzhen Huateng Smart Technology to run it based on the world’s highest standard on data hubs. The data centre will fit more than 6,000 high-density racks and another 50,000 sq metres of floor area could be added for expansion in future, which would bring the total size to 95,000 sq metres.

Alpha Investment took over the role of building the data centre at Tonghu Smart City from Huizhou Bike Property, a fully owned subsidiary of Country Garden.

The deal, signed on Thursday, came three weeks after Hebei-based data processing company Runze Technology Development poured 6 billion yuan to create an information port in the city dubbed China’s Miami, owing to its reputation as a low-cost, fair weathered location much beloved by pensioners.