Blackstone has filed for an initial public offering of a new acquisition vehicle designed to buy operational data centres. 

Dubbed Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust Inc, the company is looking to buy-up newly built data centres valued at between $250 million and $1.5 billion. By filing an IPO, Blackstone is hoping to fund the new company by raising around $2 billion, according to Bloomberg. 

This isn’t the first time Blackstone has shown interest in the data centre industry, in fact the firm has long spent large amounts of cash to grow its portfolio in the market. That portfolio includes data centre firms QTS, AirTrunk and Lumina, while it also has a joint venture partnership with Digital Realty. 

While many of its investments have focused on building out its own data centre capacity, including QTS’ £10 billion plans for a new data centre in Cambois, its new acquisition vehicle will instead focus on buying up ready-made data centres. In particular, the company is looking to focus on assets leased to investment-grade hyperscalers, especially in the AI space. 

According to the IPO filing, the properties Blackstone is targeting are expected to generate annual yields of between 5.75% and 7%, or more, with rents rising automatically by 2% to 3% each year. That combination of contracted income and built-in rental growth is likely to be central to the pitch, particularly at a time when appetite for data centre exposure remains high but suitable assets are increasingly hard to access directly.

It’s not yet clear if the new acquisition vehicle will be focused solely on the US market, or will expand globally, but what is clear is the companies backing the IPO. According to the filing, the offering is being led by Goldman Sachs, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Canada, and Wells Fargo.