Partners Group Got the AI Timing Just Right

Partners Group was already bullish on AI when, in 2022, the firm invested $1.2 billion in EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure. Then the debut of ChatGPT a few weeks later blew to lid off their initial assumptions of growth.

In the post-ChatGPT world, the hyperscaler market served by EdgeCore saw an "explosion of demand for capacity," says Diffendal who, in a wide-ranging interview, explains the criticality of strong management in responding to the unexpectedly strong leasing activity.

Two years later, the growth of EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure was such that "we basically ran out of money," says Diffendal. In September, Partners Group raised another $1.9 billion in capital, much of it in the form of co-investment from limited partners, institutional investors who had many questions about power availability and exit opportunities.

Diffendal also discusses the imperative of keeping the data centers powered to a "five-nines" (99.999%) standard of up-time, to avoid getting financially penalized by "demanding" hyperscaler customers. As investors in data-center hub Northern Virginia, Diffendal describes the general shortage of all forms of labor there, including electricians.

Partners Group's original thesis was that data centers would benefit from the tailwinds of cloud computing, video and AI. Diffendal adds: "I really think we're just at the very beginning of understanding what the commercial implications of AI will be."

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