Serverfarm Secures $3 Billion Credit Facility to Fuel AI Data Center Expansion Across North America
February 5, 2026
The insatiable demand for computing power from cloud providers and artificial intelligence firms is driving a historic wave of investment in data center infrastructure. In a significant move to capitalize on this trend, Serverfarm, a data center developer owned by Manulife Investment Management, has secured a $3 billion credit facility to accelerate its North American development pipeline.
The financing, closed in December with a consortium of 23 institutional lenders, will fund the construction and conversion of large-scale data center campuses in key markets including Houston, Atlanta, and Toronto. These projects are largely pre-leased to undisclosed AI tenants, highlighting the targeted demand. Serverfarm’s CEO, Avner Papouchado, stated that the capital “provides the foundation to accelerate our hyperscale campus development pipeline at a time when speed to market is a competitive differentiator,” citing “unprecedented demand for high-density, AI-ready infrastructure.”
The scale of the planned developments is substantial. In Houston, Serverfarm plans to build a 500-megawatt facility on 250 acres purchased last year. In Covington, Georgia, a 500,000-square-foot, 60-megawatt data center is planned, while an existing Toronto campus will see a 4-megawatt expansion. The company, which already operates a global portfolio of 24 properties spanning approximately 6 million square feet, is increasingly converting older industrial assets. This strategy reflects a broader industrial real estate shift, where AI infrastructure is attracting a growing share of institutional capital even as overall investment in the sector has cooled.
This transaction underscores the powerful momentum behind data center construction, which now accounts for roughly half of all announced industrial investment strategies. Recent fund raises, including a $2 billion fund from PGIM and a $3 billion fund from Digital Realty Trust, further signal strong investor appetite. According to CoStar data, over 200 data center projects are currently underway in the U.S., representing a 27% annual increase in construction activity—a pace five times faster than the 2015-2019 average. These projects are also growing in physical scale, now averaging over 370,000 square feet.
The push for AI-ready infrastructure is reshaping real estate markets, with developers like Serverfarm actively acquiring large industrial properties and land parcels with secured power access to bypass lengthy new construction timelines. The company will use the new financing to convert two Houston properties totaling 838,314 square feet into a data center and to transform a recently acquired 498,960-square-foot logistics center in Georgia into a natural-gas-powered facility.
While data center development booms, the broader U.S. industrial market shows signs of softening, with vacancy rising to 7.6% in early 2026 and rent growth stalling. Nevertheless, the focus on power-intensive AI workloads continues to drive development into new regions, sometimes meeting local resistance, and fuels debates about a potential supply-demand imbalance in the sector. TD Securities served as the administrative agent and joint lead arranger for Serverfarm’s $3 billion credit facility.
Source: costar
