Empyrion DC, Seraya Partners on Building a Greener Data Centre Future

Data centre demand is growing rapidly in Asia Pacific with North American players rushing to expand in the region and local operators struggling to bring existing facilities in line with the needs of AI deployments and hyperscale users.

With the second quarter ranking as the biggest three month period ever for data centre leasing, operators are challenged to fulfill a new scale of requirements, while also facing pressure to meet carbon zero targets, however, this situation is also presenting opportunities for startups ready to deploy rapidly at standards in line with current global requirements for efficiency and sustainability.

Singapore-based investment firm Seraya Partners, which focuses on sustainable initiatives, set up its first fund two years ago and made Empyrion DC, a data centre operator focused on building a green digital infrastructure its first venture, with the partners aiming to help meet this growing demand for server capacity.

To find out more about how Seraya Partners and Empyrion DC are working together to grow their data centre platform, Mingtiandi will be interviewing top executives from the two firms in a spotlight session at 10:00 AM Hong Kong time on Wednesday, 20 September on our MTD TV video platform. Registration for the event is available through the link above.

Green Infrastructure in Focus

In the interview this week, Mingtiandi will get up-close with Mark Fong, chief executive of Empyrion DC and James Chern, managing partner and chief investment officer with Seraya Partners, to find out more about their accomplishments since setting up the data centre firm in October 2021.

With more than two decades of experience in technology and the data centre industry, Fong was regional vice president for Asia Pacific and Japan for Digital Realty before taking the helm at Empyrion DC.

Experienced in working with clients across the hyperscale, colocation and interconnection segments of the industry, Fong also served as a regional director with US data centre REIT Equinix from 2014 through 2018.

Appearing alongside Fong, Chern will be sharing from his experiences setting up Seraya Partners after spending more than eight years as managing director and head of Asia with US infrastructure investment firm I Squared Capital, where he was part of the founding team.

That I Squared experience came after Chern had spent more than six years with Morgan Stanley in Greater China, including serving as an executive director with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners.

Together Fong and Chern have already acquired one data centre in Singapore, while developing another project in Seoul, as they aim for a regional green infrastructure network.

Office Strategies Up Next

Following Wednesday’s interview, Mingtiandi’s MTD TV team will take a few weeks off before returning on 19 October for our third annual office strategies forum.

That three-part series will kick off with a panel discussion on core office investments after Korea and India began showing a revival in investments in the second quarter while the rest of the region works through a pricing reset.

The second session in the forum, on Tuesday, 24 October will be a panel on value-add and opportunistic strategies around Asia Pacific, featuring Daisuke Hayashi, partner and Japan chief representative with Phoenix Property Investors, Hari Krishna V, a managing director with the real estate division at CPP Investments who is also part of the Canadian institution’s global leadership team, along with additional speakers to be announced in the coming days.

To better understand the evolution of occupier demand and how investors and developers are ensuring that their projects stay aligned with shifts in the market, MTD TV will have a panel on the future of the office on Thursday 26 October, featuring speakers from LaSalle Investment Management and Yardi, along with more industry leaders to be named soon.

After concluding the office strategies series, the MTD TV team will return to the Lion City on 14 November for our second annual Mingtiandi Singapore Focus Forum, with more than 200 industry professionals expected to attend that all-day event at the Conrad Centennial Hotel.