A portfolio of nine data centres across Canada which has been acquired from Rogers Communications will be operated by an entity called the Qu Data Centres Limited Partnership, new owner InfraRed Capital Partners has announced.

The facilities are located in Calgary, Edmonton, London, Ottawa and Toronto, with an established national footprint and up to 49 megawatts (MW) of capacity serving over 750 customers.

“With Canadian data sovereignty and in-country infrastructure at its core, this data centre platform is well-positioned to meet the growing demands of enterprise, government, hyperscale and AI customers,” the announcement states.

Qu Data Centres and InfraRed Capital Partners are subsidiaries of Canadian-owned SLC Management, the institutional alternatives and traditional asset management business of Sun Life insurance company.

"The launch of Qu marks a defining moment for Canadian digital infrastructure,” James Beer, who has been appointed CEO of Qu Data Centres, said in the announcement. “We are uniting the proven operational sophistication of our facilities, and the teams who run them, with a clear mission: To propel our clients forward by delivering unquestionably reliable, sovereign infrastructure. Qu is here to power Canadian innovation, today and for the future."

Beer has almost 30 years of experience in the industry, and most recently spent almost four years as senior vice-president at Hut 8, a company focused on digital infrastructure, large-scale Bitcoin mining, high-performance computing and data centre services. Prior to that he had a four-year stint as SVP operations at eStruxture Data Centres. He and the Qu team are based in Toronto.

The data centre portfolio

The Qu Data Centres will provide a range of colocation, cloud and connectivity solutions supported by the Canadian leadership team. 

"Our data centres bring together scale, security, and sustainability to create a trusted foundation for enterprises, cloud providers, and government. With a resilient operational platform and significant expansion capacity, we are ready to deliver the reliability and resilience that the Canadian digital economy demands," Beer said in the release.

Rogers Communications (RCI-B-T) will continue to sell data centre services and provide network connectivity into the facilities. 

"We are excited to complete this transaction and launch Qu Data Centres to continue delivering high-quality services to its extensive existing client base, with Rogers continuing to sell data centre solutions into the facilities," Pilar Banegas, partner, InfraRed Capital Partners, said in the announcement. "With significant available capacity and expansion potential, the platform is also well-aligned to meet the needs of Canada's growing demand for secure and sustainable data centre services."

The Qu Data Centres are designed to provide secure, scalable and network-dense colocation and cloud services across the nine facilities. With 49 MW of capacity, 374,000 square feet of total building space and 187,840 sq ft of IT white space, Qu will support enterprise, government, hyperscale and AI clients. There is also capacity within the facilities to expand the network.

Qu's efficiency and sustainability strategies leverage Canada's advantageous climate for free cooling and advanced data centre practices - including telemetry, automation and data hall best practices - to match cooling output to demand, reduce energy use and minimize environmental impact.

Rogers had expressed its interest in selling off data centres early in 2024, to lighten the financial burdens of acquiring former competitor Shaw in a $26-billion transaction in 2023. The company was seeking to raise $1 billion primarily from selling its real estate.

Financial terms of the sale to InfraRed were not disclosed.

About InfraRed Capital Partners

InfraRed is an international mid-market infrastructure asset manager. Over the past 25 years, InfraRed has established itself as a developer focused on early-stage projects, and an active steward of essential infrastructure.

It manages US$13 billion of equity capital for investors around the globe in listed and private funds across both core and value-add strategies.

InfraRed combines a global reach, operating worldwide from offices in London, Frankfurt, Madrid, New York, Sydney and Seoul, with a team of more than 160 people.