WSS: Multi-faceted strategic activity as neocloud momentum continues to push forward, while SEA sees more momentum
The week saw a number of strategic developments, with Digital Realty engaged in M&A, and a few neoclouds raising growth capital. Digital Realty made a series of acquisitions and the three targets were varied. Digital Realty increased its stake in South African data centre operator Teraco Data Environments and also bought a land parcel in Kansas City that it will develop into a hyperscale data centre. The third transaction saw Digital Realty purchase Columbia Capital as it looks to augment its ability to raise private capital to support growth and expansion initiatives. Bringing an investment shop in-house gives Digital Realty expanded strategic capabilities, access to partners across the broader ecosystem and potential customers. The past week also saw capital raising activity from neoclouds. Runpod raised $100m at a valuation of $1b from Summit Partners and we also saw Hydra Host raise $100m in a Series A from a group of investors that included NVIDIA. Many neocloud service providers are young and have only recently formed, but the early stages of performance has been healthy enough to attract significant investor interest.
The transition from cryptocurrency to the data centre business continues. We have intensified our tracking of this demographic and looked more closely at WhiteFiber in the past week. WhiteFiber went public last year and spun out of bitcoin provider Bit Digital just a few years ago to focus on AI infrastructure services. WhiteFiber has won a number of data centre colocation deals in the 1H26 period and has also picked up cloud infrastructure customers. We have some of the details.
Meanwhile, the public markets continue to attract neoclouds and data centre operators focused on AI. Australia’s Sharon AI went public earlier this year and recently raised capital to support a 72MW GPU cloud deployment in Australia, using a data centre colocation partner. Sharon AI also expanded its partnership with VAST Data, which is the underlying management platform for its data layer.
The past week also saw meaningful activity in Southeast Asia. ETIX secured a $70m credit facility to support development of its data centre expansion in Bangkok, Thailand, while Galaxy Data Center, which has a site in the Bangkok area, raised $250m in an initial strategic financing round. Another interesting development that could signal where hyperscale is going to expand next in the region was the launch of AWS Local Zones in Hanoi. A Local Zones node typically is a sign of emerging demand and can be a precursor to hyperscale AZs as we saw happen in recent years in Bangkok. Ho Chi Minh City is expected to be where AZs will land in Vietnam, and an edge node in Hanoi confirms that as AWS is likely to be looking at a core-edge architecture between the two metros.
Finally, the past week saw developments on the consulting side of the game. Sweden’s evroc partnered with KPMG, Deloitte is working with Google and IBM is working with Google as well. Consultancies are helping enterprises with modernization initiatives and standing up and managing AI infrastructure. Google is pursuing partnership to help enterprises get the help they need in order to deploy on its cloud platforms and use its AI-oriented tools and services.
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