AtlasEdge Raises $1.2 Billion in Debt to Expand European Data Center Footprint
The Liberty Global / DigitalBridge joint venture has secured a $1.2 billion debt facility to scale its data center capacity across Europe, marking the largest single financing in its history, according to a Bloomberg report.
Key Points:
- Financing Details: AtlasEdge, owned by Liberty Global and DigitalBridge, raised approximately $1.2 billion for expanding its data center network.
- Timing: This comes during an active period of European data center capital deployment.
- Previous Raises: The company has progressively increased its debt funding, securing a €725 million facility in 2024 and a €253 million green financing package for Lisbon expansion earlier this month.
- Total Debt: The recent raise brings the cumulative debt across the platform to over $2 billion within 12 months.
- Financing Structure: Similar to previous deals, the structure involves senior secured term-bond facilities with European bank syndicates.
- Capacity Goals: AtlasEdge aims to add more than 150MW of European capacity over the coming years, with projects in Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.
- Market Thesis: The company focuses on smaller, more numerous edge facilities closer to enterprise customers, targeting AI inference, video streaming, and latency-sensitive workloads.
- European Demand: Hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are capacity-constrained in Europe, while regional alternatives like OVHcloud, Scaleway, and T Cloud Public are scaling but not yet at hyperscale levels.
- Market Forecast: Gartner predicts European spending on sovereign cloud infrastructure will reach $12.6 billion in 2026, up 83% from 2025.
- Policy Impact: European policymakers have been reevaluating their reliance on US hyperscalers, as evidenced by the recent publication of the Tech Sovereignty Package restricting US cloud providers' access to sensitive data.