Ascenty’s LatAm datacenter capacity, occupancy flat in Q2

Brazil-based Ascenty, the Latin American datacenter JV owned by Digital Realty and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, saw the overall IT capacity for its Latin America sites remain flat in Q2 in a sign of weak demand, according to Digital Realty’s quarterly bookings.

Considered as white IT space load, the capacity metric represents UPS-backed utility power dedicated to operated datacenter space. In other words, it is the power capacity in use for the sites, which remained unchanged from the previous quarter.

In Brazil’s Fortaleza, Digital Realty’s figures show lower demand for Ascenty’s site. At the end of March, the datacenter there was 87% occupied while three months later the rate dropped to 22%. 

The occupancy rates for Ascenty's other Latin American datacenters did not decline, but they did not increase either. They are 91.9% for the São Paulo area, 90.1% for Santiago, 100% for Querétaro (Mexico) and 100% for Rio de Janeiro.

Digital Realty also reported a US$3.56 million annualized base rent for Ascenty’s Fortaleza datacenter, down from US$9.54mn in Q1.

The rate represents the monthly contractual base rent (defined as cash base rent before abatements) under existing leases as of June 30, multiplied by 12, the company said. 

Competition might have played a role. Ascenty opened its datacenter in Fortaleza in 2015, with investments of more than 120mn reais (currently US$21.2mn).

Since then, the city has seen other datacenters emerge, mostly in the wake of the submarine cables that land in the area, from companies such as Angola Cables, V.tal, HostDime and Eveo. Scala and Elea are currently building datacenters in the northeast city.

Ascenty’s Fortaleza site was projected to have 10MW in total power and sit on a 9,000m2 plot. Currently, it has 6.2MW in white IT space load.

Overall, Ascenty ended the half with 150MW in operational IT capacity for all its Latin America sites, unchanged from March. The capacity is divided as follows: 118MW for its São Paulo datacenters, 10.2MW for Santiago, 8MW for Querétaro, 8MW for Rio de Janeiro and 6.2MW in Fortaleza.

At end-2023, the total operational IT load was 148MW. The 2MW capacity added came from the São Paulo sites while all other sites remained flat.

In Colombia, the company is yet to launch its first two planned datacenters in the Bogotá area. 

Ascenty reserved 197,000 square feet for the project, a plot that has remained listed as “space held for development” rather than “space under active development” in Digital Realty’s bookings. 

The activation of the group's first datacenter in Bogotá, initially scheduled for later this year, was pushed back to 2025. Ascenty does not see Colombia's enterprise market as fully mature yet.

“We're not in a hurry. We're always accelerating or holding back our investments according to demand. In Colombia, I already have the two buildings ready, another lot of land secured, the permits granted and the energy as well,” COO Marcos Siqueira told BNamericas last month.

In the same interview, Siqueira said Ascenty was doing the opposite in Chile and Brazil – accelerating its delivery schedule on the back of market demand. In the case of Chile, expansion projects were 10% ahead of the initial schedule, he said at the time.

Among projects under development or in operation, Ascenty lists 36 sites in Latin America. 

Of the total, 25 are in São Paulo, three in Querétaro, three in Santiago, two in Rio de Janeiro, one in Fortaleza and two in Bogotá.  

LEASES

Globally, Digital Realty reported US$164mn of new leasing for its datacenters in the second quarter, “with two-thirds of that falling into the greater-than-megawatt category, the majority of which landed in the Americas,” CFO Matt Mercier told investors in an earnings call.

The group posted total revenues of US$306mn for the quarter, with US$207mn coming from the Americas.

The amount includes Ascenty’s operations and the operations of Blackstone NoVa, Clise, GI Partners, Mapletree, Menlo, Mitsubishi, Realty Income, TPG Real Estate and Walsh.