Digital 9 Infrastructure plc (LON: DGI9) has acquired Icelandic data centre operator Verne Global in a cash transaction worth approximately £231 million (US$318m).

The acquisition of Verne Global, which operates a 100% renewable powered data centre campus in Keflavík, a town in the Reykjanes region in southwest Iceland, comes months after Digital 9’s subsea investment in Aqua Comms

Verne Global’s 40-acre data centre campus has been designed from the ground up to provide data centre services for organisations running high intensity compute workloads, including AI, machine learning, high performance computing (HPC) and supercomputing.

Dominic Ward, CEO of Verne Global, said: “We are absolutely delighted to become part of the Digital 9 Infrastructure platform. Its mission to support and develop highly-resilient digital infrastructures that fuel innovation, but are also sustainable and inclusive, resonates tremendously with Verne Global’s own business objectives. What Verne Global has achieved over the last decade is a fantastic accomplishment and is a great acknowledgement of the exceptional team that we have.

“We are hugely grateful for the support that we have had from our prior shareholders – Wellcome Trust, Stefnir, Novator Partners, and General Catalyst Partners – to this point. As we look forward, we are now hugely excited to be working with D9 and believe that we have the perfect partner to help power our future.”

Commenting on the Verne Global transaction, Thor Johnsen, Head of Digital Infrastructure at Triple Point, D9’s Investment Manager, added: “Data centres form a key part of the digital infrastructure backbone. Verne Global’s existing Icelandic based data centre assets represent some of the cleanest, lowest carbon footprint data centres, globally. This is another key step to support decarbonising the data centre industry. 

“Together with the D9 subsea investment in Aqua Comms, we are pursuing further fibre network opportunities to improve connectivity into the Nordics, enabling data centre users reliable and low cost access to the vast renewable and low cost energy resources of Iceland and the Nordics.”