Blue Owl, Chirisa Technology Parks and PowerHouse Data Centers announce first phase of $5 Billion Joint Venture Development Partnership

CHICAGO and RICHMOND, Va. and MCLEAN, Va., Aug. 29, 2024 — Funds managed by Blue Owl Capital Inc. (“Blue Owl”), Chirisa Technology Parks (“CTP”), and PowerHouse Data Centers (“PowerHouse”) have today executed a joint venture development agreement (“JV”) focused on the development of large-scale AI/HPC data centers for CoreWeave, Inc. (“CoreWeave”). The agreement is intended as the first stage of a partnership with capacity to deploy up to $5 Billion of capital for turnkey AI/HPC data center developments supporting CoreWeave and other hyperscale and enterprise data center customers.

The JV represents an innovative and flexible capital solution allowing for the rapid development and deployment of new AI/HPC capacity across the United States on a Built-to-Suit basis. The initial 120MW of capacity under the program will be delivered for CoreWeave in 2025 and 2026 at CTP’s 350-acre campus near Richmond, VA. Further deployments in the pipeline include brownfield and greenfield campuses in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Kentucky and Nevada.

Announcing the transaction today, Lee Hayes, President and CEO of CTP stated, “This breakthrough transaction with Blue Owl, CTP and PowerHouse is the first stage of a large-scale partnership focused on meeting the near-term requirements of our hyperscale customer base.  Through innovative structuring, broad financial distribution and the transactional expertise of our partners at Blue Owl, this partnership unlocks very substantial growth capital for one of the most important players in today’s AI hyperscale landscape.”

Doug Fleit, CEO and Co-founder of PowerHouse, continued, “PowerHouse is proud to partner with Blue Owl and CTP. By bringing our proven real estate leadership and cadre of acquisition, development, and power procurement experts to the JV, this partnership will redefine the landscape of precision hyperscale infrastructure.”

Marc Zahr, Blue Owl’s Co-President and Head of Real Estate added, “This partnership between Blue Owl, CTP and PowerHouse brings together three distinguished operators in our respective areas of expertise. Blue Owl is in the process of deploying significant amounts of capital in support of large-scale data center development transactions across the US and Europe. We are happy to partner with CoreWeave, CTP and PowerHouse and look forward to supporting the partners longer term development ambitions.”

Newmark served as advisor to the Joint Venture.