Canada Backs €8 Billion European Data Centre Deal

Canada’s CPP Investments Board has joined forces with Goodman Group on a €8 billion European data centre partnership across Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris, marking a major expansion of Canada’s pension fund.

The venture, known as the Goodman European Data Centre Development Partnership, represents CPP Investments’ first formal entry into large-scale data centre development on the European continent, broadening its infrastructure footprint beyond earlier ventures in other regions.

Under the agreement, four major facilities will be developed in Germany, the Netherlands, and France, specifically in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris, strategically chosen for their roles as technology hubs and gateways for cloud services and artificial intelligence infrastructure. These sites together offer a combined 435 megawatts of primary power capacity and 282 megawatts of IT load.

Executives on both sides hailed the partnership as a timely response to the growing need for robust digital infrastructure that supports cloud computing and advanced computing services across Europe. CPP Investments’ Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Real Assets highlighted the opportunity to establish a strong presence in this vital sector.

Goodman Group’s leadership also stressed the rarity and strategic importance of the portfolio being assembled, noting that fully powered and permitted sites in the so-called FLAP markets, encompassing Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, and Paris, are exceptionally sought after by global technology companies.

The pace of construction for the new data centres is expected to pick up quickly, with groundwork and building set to begin by late June 2026, and the transaction anticipated to conclude by March of that year.