Australia's Aware Super buys stake in European fibre platform to tap AI boom

(Reuters) - Australian pension fund Aware Super said on Tuesday it has acquired a minority stake in London-headquartered bandwidth infrastructure company euNetworks, in a bid to tap into the artificial intelligence boom.

It invested in euNetworks via a vehicle led by global infrastructure and real assets manager Stonepeak, and others including Investment Management Corporation of Ontario and APG Asset Management.

Aware Super, which manages A$180 billion in assets, did not reveal the size of its stake or the investment amount.

EuNetworks owns and operates deep fibre networks in 18 cities in Europe, as well as a long haul network across several countries in the region. It directly connects over 542 data centres.

The deal comes amid growing interest and demand for data centres, which are essential to the rise of generative AI.

"EuNetworks was a strong first step for expanding the Fund's digital infrastructure portfolio into new markets," said Katya Romashkan, Aware Super Portfolio Manager – Infrastructure.

($1 = 0.8953 euros)

(Reporting by Ayushman Ojha; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Shinjini Ganguli)