Fujitsu has sold five of its Australian datacentres to private equity firm Next Capital, as part of a broader retreat from datacentre ownership so it can focus on faster-growing services such as cyber resilience, sovereign AI and high-performance and quantum computing. The move comes as demand for AI computing capacity is driving a global datacentre building boom, yet Fujitsu is choosing to exit the property side of the business rather than expand it, following earlier divestments including its US datacentre unit in 2023 and its exit from Japanese public cloud and mainframe operations.

The six facilities in Fujitsu's Australian portfolio ranged from 92MW and 28MW capacity down to much smaller sites of 10MW, 4.8MW, 3MW and 2MW; five were bought by Next Capital, while The Register understands the sixth was sold separately to another buyer. Local media reports suggest Next Capital paid around AUD$200 million (roughly £104 million), and the firm has promised continuity for existing tenants, many of whom are long-standing blue-chip and government clients likely to provide steady cashflow. However, the smaller sites may need significant investment to handle modern AI workloads, which can demand 500kW or more per rack, though upgrading existing sites could still prove cheaper and less regulatorily complex than building new ones from scratch.