Vantage Data Centers Explores $100 Billion IPO or Sale as AI Buildout Accelerates

Vantage Data Centers is exploring an IPO or a sale as soon as next year, capitalizing on the AI boom. The hyperscale data center developer, backed by private equity giant Silver Lake and infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group, is in early talks about going public or being sold, according to Reuters reporting by Milana Vinn and Echo Wang.

If it goes public, Vantage could raise around $10 billion at a valuation near $100 billion. This would make it the largest data center IPO ever, according to two people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. A straight sale, including a partial stake sale, is also on the table, a third person told Reuters.

None of this is locked in. Reuters is clear that no formal process has launched. The talks are described as preliminary, the deliberations are at an early stage, and the timing, structure and size of any deal remain subject to change. The people who described the discussions to Reuters spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. Vantage could walk away from a deal entirely.

Silver Lake declined to comment. DigitalBridge and Vantage did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Without a company statement or SEC filing, everything here rests on unnamed sources, and readers should treat the $100 billion figure as a number floated in early talks, not a locked valuation.

Newsquawk's analysis adds useful context here. Its writeup frames the "as soon as" language and multi-year horizon as early-stage signaling, not an active deal process. Companies in this position often test public markets and private buyers simultaneously to see who pays more, according to Newsquawk. That's a fair read: sponsors like Silver Lake and DigitalBridge have a track record of favoring staggered exits and partial sell-downs over a single clean transaction, and floating a huge number in the press is a classic way to set market expectations before bankers are formally hired.

The Money Behind the Boom

Vantage isn't starting from zero. The company has raised roughly $11 billion since late 2023, including a $9.2 billion equity investment led by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake, according to Reuters. The valuation tied to that raise wasn't disclosed.

The company has also landed serious AI-industry partnerships. Vantage recently teamed up with Oracle and OpenAI on a data center campus in Wisconsin tied to Stargate, the joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle aimed at building up to $500 billion and 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure, Reuters reported.

Separately, Mingtiandi reported that Vantage is weighing a sale of its Malaysia data center assets in a deal that could value them at more than $2 billion. Vantage operates a 31-megawatt campus in Cyberjaya, is developing a second site there with 436 megawatts of planned capacity, and is building three more data centers in Johor totaling over 300 megawatts, according to Mingtiandi. The company is working with a financial adviser on that potential sale but could still choose to keep the assets.

That Malaysia deal is a smaller, separate track from the broader IPO-or-sale discussion Reuters described, but it points in the same direction. Vantage and its backers are testing exit options across multiple markets at once, not just in the U.S.

Vantage Isn't Alone

Data center IPOs are having a moment. Reuters reported last month that Switch, another data center operator, hired banks for an IPO that could raise up to $10 billion and value the company around $80 billion. CyrusOne is reportedly preparing for a possible IPO as early as 2027.

Southeast Asia is seeing its own wave of activity. Mingtiandi reported that Sixth Street Partners and South Korea's SK Telecom are among bidders for a stake in Bridge Data Centres, the Bain Capital-owned operator, in a deal that could value the business at more than $4 billion. Singapore's GIC and Canada's La Caisse are also in that mix. Separately, Blackstone-backed AirTrunk secured $2.3 billion in green financing for a hyperscale campus in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, according to Mingtiandi, its largest single-asset financing to date.

AI compute demand is turning data centers into one of the hottest asset classes in private equity. The firms that built these platforms over the past few years want to lock in gains while valuations are hot. Whether that's a sign of a genuinely durable AI infrastructure buildout or a valuation bubble waiting for a correction in long-end rates or hyperscaler capex plans is the open question Newsquawk's analysis flags directly.

For now, there's no confirmed banker mandate, no filed prospectus, and no company on-record commitment from Vantage, Silver Lake or DigitalBridge. The next real signal will be whether Vantage formally hires investment banks to run an IPO process, similar to what Switch has already done, or whether a strategic buyer steps up with a firm offer for a stake instead.