Partners Group to buy majority of AVK with $1B-plus data center power bet

Partners Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a UK-based supplier of power systems for data centers and AI infrastructure. The Swiss private markets firm plans to initially invest more than $1 billion of equity, supplemented by debt, with AVK's management team retaining a minority stake.

It designs, installs, and maintains data center power solutions, including back-up generators, behind-the-meter turnkey energy infrastructure such as microgrids, and modular electrical power units. AVK has delivered more than 20,000 projects and installed roughly 3.5 GW of power to date.

European data center capacity is rising fast on cloud adoption, AI compute demand, and data sovereignty policies. But grid congestion is a major bottleneck: connections in the "FLAP-D" markets — Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin — can take between seven and 15 years.

Partners Group and AVK's management aim to turn the company into an infrastructure platform offering long-term Energy-as-a-Service, mainly through microgrids. That means AVK would build and own power assets and secure long-term offtake agreements with operators. It already has a pipeline of more than 2 GW of behind-the-meter opportunities across Europe.

Partners Group has built decentralised energy expertise through investments in Gren and Eteck, and data center experience via the pan-Nordic platform atNorth. It also acquired US behind-the-meter provider Life Cycle Power in 2025.

Power, not chips, is emerging as the binding constraint on AI's expansion. As grid queues lengthen, investors are pouring capital into on-site generation that lets operators bypass the wait — turning energy supply into the data center industry's next battleground.