APAC Real Estate Weekly: Data Centre Deals Top the Ledger

Asia Pacific real estate is drawing billions in fresh commitments this week, and data centre financing dominates the ledger. From a potential A$8.6 billion ($6 billion) loan in Melbourne to a $205 million Chennai facility and a $1.1 billion bet on India’s Bihar state, investors and operators are positioning for the region’s surging demand for cloud, connectivity and AI infrastructure. Logistics capital is moving too, with China’s JD Property entering the UAE and Singapore’s Mapletree expanding in Hong Kong.

The largest single financing test comes from Stack Infrastructure Inc., the data centre company seeking an A$8.6 billion ($6 billion) loan, according to a person familiar with the matter. The five-year facility, for which the company this week mandated lead arrangers, underwriters and bookrunners, would rank among the biggest financings to the sector in Asia, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Proceeds will fund Stack’s data centre project in Melbourne. The deal is being watched as a major test of investor sentiment toward AI debt in the region at a time of mounting concerns.

In India, Singapore-listed CapitaLand India Trust has unveiled a data centre in Chennai with planned investment of INR 19.4 billion ($205 million). The trust expects the facility to deliver 53MW of gross power capacity by the end of 2026. It co-owns the project with private vehicle CapitaLand India Data Centre Fund. The trust’s first data centre, a 108MW Navi Mumbai facility completed in 2025, is fully leased to a global hyperscaler, the trust said.

Leasing momentum is also evident in Mumbai, where UK-based Colt Data Centre Services and India’s RMZ have started construction of a 64MW data centre in Navi Mumbai. The partners have already fully leased the project, including signing up a hyperscale customer. Mumbai 3 forms part of the partners’ $1.7 billion joint venture to develop 250MW of capacity across Mumbai and Chennai, and joins existing data centres Mumbai 1 and Mumbai 2 at the Navi Mumbai Campus, bringing the cluster’s operational capacity to 86MW, the companies said.

Meanwhile, CtrlS, the Indian operator backed by the Canadian Public Pension Investment Board, plans to invest INR 100 billion ($1.1 billion) in a 150MW hyperscale AI data centre in Bodh Gaya, in the eastern state of Bihar. The company has also inaugurated a 12MW data centre in the state capital Patna, into which it invested INR 4 billion, and plans more than 20 edge data centres in smaller Indian cities.

In South Korea, US-based Digital Realty has topped out ICN11, its newest data centre development in the country, with operations set to begin in the second half of 2027. The company named DPR Construction, South Korea’s DL E&C, Turner & Townsend and Heerim Architects & Planners as partners on the project, and said South Korea continues to see surging demand for cloud, connectivity and AI infrastructure.

Logistics capital is moving in parallel. China’s JD Property has signed a memorandum of understanding with Dubai-based developer Gargash Prime to form a joint venture developing a 2.5 million square foot (232,250 square metre) logistics site in the UAE. The partners plan a regional distribution and fulfilment hub on the site, according to the announcement. The deal follows JD Property’s first logistics acquisition in Dubai in 2025 and a warehouse development project in Abu Dhabi later that year, marking a steady build-out of its Middle East footprint.

Mapletree, the Singapore group, has broken ground on a 227,800 square metre (2.5 million square foot) logistics development in Tsing Yi, an island logistics cluster in Hong Kong. The 12-storey ramp-access project sits next to Mapletree Logistics Trust’s Mapletree Logistics Hub Tsing Yi, and the company says it will expand its footprint in Hong Kong’s logistics market and attract high-value occupiers. The development targets LEED Gold and BEAM Plus Gold green certifications.

Public capital is also in play. Taiwan plans to build an industrial complex in Texas costing as much as $4 billion to house AI hardware suppliers, Bloomberg reported, citing Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin. It is the first step in plans for US industrial parks supporting Nvidia’s supply chain. Kung said the facilities would help smaller suppliers to Nvidia production partner TSMC and AI server assemblers such as Foxconn set up in the US.

Taken together, the week’s announcements point to capital concentrating where digital demand is strongest: hyperscale data centres in India, Korea and Australia, and logistics assets in the Gulf, Hong Kong and the UAE. For investors, the open question is whether debt markets will absorb financings of Stack’s scale as readily as equity has flowed into the sector. Tune in again soon for more real estate news, and follow @Mingtiandi on X or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.