Digital Realty forms joint venture with BDIA to enter Indonesian data center market

　　Digital Realty has entered the Indonesian data center market by forming a 50-50 joint venture company with Jakarta-based Bersama Digital Infrastructure Asia (BDIA) to develop and operate data centers throughout the country.

　　Bersama Digital Data Centres (BDDC), BDIA's carrier-neutral data center platform, was contributed to the joint venture, while Digital Realty contributed approximately $100 million for a 50% interest in the data centers and adjacent land, which will support further expansion.

　　Digital Realty will receive property management and development fees from the joint venture in addition to its equity interest.

　　Digital Realty Bersama, the new joint venture company, will take over the BDDC's campus, which includes the recently opened CGK11 data center in Central Jakarta and the CGK10 facility in West Jakarta.

　　Initially launched with 5 megawatts (MW) of IT load capacity, CGK11 is expected to support up to 32MW through its next phase of expansion. It will also have a direct connection to Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers (APJII), Indonesia's largest Internet exchange provider, making it one of the most connected, network-dense data center locations in downtown Jakarta.

　　"This joint venture combines Digital Realty's global data center expertise and scale with BDDC's local market knowledge and robust connectivity, creating a unique value proposition for our customers," Serene Nah, managing director and head of Asia Pacific at Digital Realty, said in a statement on Tuesday.

　　Anticipating exponential growth in data center demand

　　Digital Realty Bersama will be headed by the BDDC management team led by CEO Angelo Syailendra and Chairman Setyanto Hantoro. Krishna Worotikan, former country chief financial officer of Microsoft Indonesia, has joined the new company as chief financial officer.

　　The company said it expects to see robust demand for data center solutions to handle the growing number of AI and cloud workloads in Indonesia.

　　Citing data from Structure Research, the data center operator added that the colocation market in Jakarta alone is expected to generate $499 million in 2025, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 11% and an expected uptake of approximately 54.6MW.

　　"We consider the Southeast Asia digital infrastructure sector to be very attractive given the exponential growth of data consumption and significant capital requirements for infrastructure to keep pace with demand," said Verena Lim, co-head of Asia-Pacific Macquarie Asset Management Infrastructure and Asia CEO of Macquarie Group.

　　The consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management, Saratoga Investama Sedaya, is a major shareholder in BDIA, along with Provident Capital Partners and Distro Hub.

　　"We are very pleased to partner with Digital Realty on Digital Realty Bersama and believe their global sector expertise will complement Bersama's strong on-the-ground presence and local relationships," Lim added