en.Wedoany.com Reported - Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) is planning to establish a data center real estate investment trust (REIT) to provide long-term capital support for its data center and AI cloud investments.

In its 2026 annual report, the company stated that capital expenditure is expected to increase from S$2.5 billion (approximately US$1.9 billion) last year to about S$3 billion (US$2.3 billion) in fiscal year 2027, primarily driven by data center and AI cloud investments. To fund this plan, the company is seeking external private capital sources and project-level debt, while also considering the establishment of a publicly listed REIT.

A REIT is a company that owns and operates income-generating real estate such as data centers, generating revenue by leasing space and collecting rent. A data center REIT refers to an investment trust where all or most of the trust's income comes from data center leasing. In the industry, Digital Realty, GDS, PLDT, and NTT have previously spun off publicly listed REITs, while Blackstone's AirTrunk and Blackstone itself are also pursuing similar initiatives.

Singtel is closing some of its smaller legacy data centers in Singapore but operates multiple large facilities in the city-state through its Nxera division. Nxera is also developing multiple facilities with local partners in Southeast Asia, with plans to increase total capacity from 200MW to 400MW in the coming years. Singtel, owned by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, sold a 20% stake in its data center business to KKR in 2023.

The telecom company, together with KKR, is also acquiring all shares of Asia-Pacific data center company ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) from Temasek's ST Telemedia. It is currently unclear whether Singtel's data center REIT will use Nxera facilities, STT GDC data centers, or a mix of both as seed assets. In the annual report, Singtel stated that the two data center companies will operate independently after the acquisition.