CPPIB has agreed to pay roughly US$1.6-billion for 60 per cent of data centre operator atNorth.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is buying a controlling interest in Nordic data centre operator atNorth, marking the latest of several large digital infrastructure deals the country’s largest pension plan has made recently.
CPPIB has agreed to pay roughly US$1.6-billion for 60 per cent of atNorth. California-based Equinix Inc. will buy the remaining 40 per cent, valuing the Nordic company at about US$4-billion, including debt. Reykjavik-based atNorth operates eight data centres in Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, with three more under various stages of development.
The deal represents the seventh major data centre investment CPPIB has made since 2024. Data centres have become increasingly valuable in the wake of the rush to build out processing capacity for artificial intelligence, though CPPIB head of infrastructure James Bryce said AI-fuelled growth was not the main driver of the atNorth deal.
“This transaction is underpinned by cloud and enterprise demand,” Mr. Bryce said in an interview from London. “If AI turns out to be towards our more optimistic scenarios for adoption, that will be an extra boost to the plan.”
CPPIB forms real estate joint venture with California’s IRA Capital
CPPIB and Equinix have also provisionally agreed to a financing package of US$4.2-billion for atNorth, which will remain an independent company, to help refinance its existing debt and fund its growth plans.
“With the debt package secured, which I believe is the largest debt package ever raised for a data centre developer in Europe, and also the equity backing that comes from CPPIB and Equinix – two very, very large equity investors – this is now an extremely well capitalized business,” Mr. Bryce said.
Equinix, one of the world’s largest digital infrastructure providers with more than 270 data centres spread across 36 countries, has a long-standing relationship with CPPIB. In 2024, the two entities launched a US$15-billion joint venture with Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund GIC to finance the development of new Equinix data centres in the United States.
CPPIB holds a 37.5-per-cent stake in that arrangement, with the first data centre site currently under development outside of Atlanta.
Prior to establishing that joint venture, CPPIB had a pre-existing position in Equinix’s Nasdaq-listed stock. As of March 31, 2025 – when CPPIB last publicly disclosed its equity holdings – that investment was worth more than $1-billion.
CPPIB commits $750-million to refresh mid-market private-equity partnership with Northleaf
In September, 2024, CPPIB acquired a 12-per-cent stake in AirTrunk, which operates data centres across the Asia Pacific region. Two months later, the pension fund committed $285-million to a joint venture with Pacific Asset Management Company to develop data centres in South Korea.
In December, 2025, CPPIB established a 50-50 partnership with Australian real estate developer Goodman Group to build data centres in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. In June of that year, CPPIB invested US$1.3-billion with Ares Management Corp. to develop three data centre campuses in Tokyo. And in July, the pension fund provided $225-million in construction financing to expand a data centre in Cambridge, Ont.
In 2020, Equinix bought $1-billion worth of data centres from Canadian telecom giant BCE Inc. and today it operates 15 locations across the country (including a five-storey purpose-built facility in downtown Toronto). Bruce Owen, president of the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division, said Toronto has become a major hub for its employees globally.
In an interview, Mr. Owen said Equinix and CPPIB will likely make even more data centre deals together in the future.
“I imagine that, given how good the relationship has been and how we both take a long view in terms of value creation, that there will likely be more opportunities for partnership going forward,” he said.
Editor’s note: The headline on a previous version of this article incorrectly stated CPPIB is partnering to buy atNorth for US$4-billion. The deal will be worth US$4-billion.