Digital Realty, Equinix battle for €4.5B atNorth acquisition

Nordic datacenter operator's cool-climate facilities attract bids amid AI-driven market frenzy

Digital Realty and a consortium including Equinix are competing to acquire atNorth, a Scandinavian datacenter operator, according to reports.

Partners Group, a Swiss private equity and real estate biz which bought atNorth in 2021, is understood to be seeking between €4 billion ($4.6 billion) and €4.5 billion ($5.2 billion), according to Bloomberg and the FT.

Now the bidders keen to snatch up the business are reported to include two of the largest multinational datacenter operators, Digital Realty and Equinix. Equinix is working with investors Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

The Register asked atNorth to comment.

atNorth operates nine datacenters across countries with cooler climates. Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland are locations that offer significant cooling advantages for AI workloads.

For either buyer, the acquisition would provide both additional capacity and entry into markets beyond the ...