Digital Realty Sets Up Turkish Data Center Venture, Betting on Secured Power Capacity

Digital Realty Sets Up Turkish Data Center Venture, Betting on Secured Power Capacity

Digital Realty Trust, the data center specialist REIT, has formed a new joint venture in Türkiye, extending its international footprint into a market where reliable electricity access has become the central constraint on data center development.

The venture focuses on securing power capacity — a scarce commodity in Türkiye, where grid constraints and energy costs have slowed hyperscale construction relative to Western Europe. For Digital Realty Trust, Inc., which operates colocation facilities, powered base buildings, and data center suites globally, controlling secured power is often the gating factor for new capacity, since land and buildings alone do not guarantee deliverable megawatts.

Türkiye sits between European and Middle Eastern demand corridors, and operators have increasingly looked at the country as a route to serve both regions. Still, development there carries currency and macroeconomic risk that peers have historically approached through joint-venture structures rather than wholly owned builds — a playbook this new entity follows.

The announcement lands during a choppy session for the stock. Shares of the Austin-based REIT changed hands at $182.12, down 1.16% from the prior close of $184.26, valuing the company at roughly $70 billion. Digital Realty is classified in the specialty REIT industry and has been balancing heavy capital deployment for new capacity against shareholder distribution demands, making partner-funded structures like this one a recurring feature of its growth strategy.

The move also reflects a broader industry dynamic: as cloud providers commit multi-year capacity, data center landlords are racing to lock down land paired with contracted power. In markets with tighter grids, whoever controls the interconnect often controls the project timeline.

What to watch

• Details on the venture’s capital commitments, ownership split, and initial megawatt pipeline as they are disclosed.
• Digital Realty’s upcoming earnings report and any updates to development spending and leasing guidance.
• Whether hyperscale customers commit capacity in Türkiye, which would signal demand validation for the market.
• Progress on power procurement across Digital Realty’s other constrained markets, which shapes future capacity announcements.

Source: original release