London – Macquarie Asset Management and NTT, a leading IT infrastructure and services company, have agreed to enter into a strategic real estate partnership covering NTT’s wholesale facilities across Europe and North America.

NTT is one of the world’s largest data center operators, with over 1,300 MWs of data center capacity today, including a large development pipeline of a 25% increase in capacity across more than 20 countries and regions globally. This strategic real estate partnership will give Macquarie Asset Management the opportunity to invest real estate capital alongside NTT to support its expansion in Europe and North America. At the same time, this partnership provides NTT the opportunity to further accelerate its data center development to take advantage of unprecedented growth in the market as the move to digital continues to grow globally.

Brett Robson, Global Head of Real Estate for Macquarie Asset Management, said: “We see this as a very attractive sector to invest in, given the exponential growth of global data and computing and the significant capital requirements for operators to keep up with user demand. We are delighted to partner with NTT, a leading data center operator, that has a global footprint and an exceptionally strong development and operational history.”

Masaaki Moribayashi, President and Board Director for NTT Ltd., said: “The world is moving further and further towards digital operations, driving demand for data centers. NTT has ambitious plans to build and operate more data centers which our strategic partnership with Macquarie, a globally recognized, long-term and experienced financial investment partner, will allow us to achieve. NTT aims to provide high-quality services to global companies by maximizing investment efficiency and accelerating data center business investments. Macquarie understands our vision to enable the growth and innovation of our clients. Macquarie’s real estate investment capabilities are highly attractive as we consider the ongoing development of our platform in Europe and North America.”

NTT has committed to achieving net zero emissions across its data center operations by 2030 and across its value chain by 2040. As part of this commitment, NTT aims for its global data center portfolio to be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2030, while the operator also continues to focus on enhancing its sustainable design standards and energy efficiency measures.