Partners group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in AVK power solutions one of the largest and fastest-growing suppliers of power solutions for data centres and AI infrastructure in Europe, on behalf of its clients. Partners group plans to initially invest over USD 1 billion of equity, supplemented by debt financing, to accelerate future growth. The AVK management team will retain a minority stake.
Headquartered in the UK, AVK designs, installs, and maintains data centre power solutions with a focus on back-up power generators; bespoke behind-the-meter turnkey energy infrastructure, including microgrids; and modular electrical power units. The company also offers hybrid solutions that can run on biogas, biofuel, and hydrogen. AVK has delivered more than 20,000 projects and installed approximately 3.5 GW of power to-date. The company is active across the established “FLAP-D” markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin, as well as emerging European growth markets.
Total installed data centre capacity in Europe has risen rapidly in recent years driven by accelerating cloud adoption and AI-driven compute demand, as well as policy initiatives to support data sovereignty. This expansion is reinforced by low vacancy rates across Europe’s largest data centre markets. However, the region continues to face grid congestion constraints, with connections in FLAP-D markets taking between seven and 15 years, which is a key bottleneck for expansion. AVK’s solutions help solve this through providing operators with mission-critical access to on-site power generation at accelerated timelines.
Alongside management, Partners group has ambitions to transform AVK into an infrastructure platform offering long-term energy-as-a-service (“EaaS”) solutions to data centres, principally through microgrids. This will involve AVK continuing to build and own power assets and securing long-term contracted offtake agreements with data centre operators or customers. AVK has an advanced pipeline of more than 2 GW of behind-the-meter power opportunities across Europe.
Partners group has built deep expertise in decentralized energy in Europe through its investments in Gren and Eteck, as well as in data centres having scaled and exited the pan-Nordic platform atNorth. AVK sits at the cross-section of these growing sectors. Partners group also has experience investing in behind-the-meter turnkey energy solutions providers for data centres in the US through its acquisition of Life Cycle Power in 2025.
Nicholas Pepper, managing director, infrastructure, partners group, says: “AI is driving one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in decades, and access to power is becoming a defining constraint. This constraint and lengthening connection queues are critical bottlenecks to growth in the European data centre market, which on-site generation can alleviate by accelerating speed-to-power. AVK, with its deep expertise, track record, and pan-European footprint, is well-positioned to address this issue as a one-stop-shop for data centre power solutions. We see an exciting growth opportunity for AVK and we look forward to supporting the management team in its next chapter.”
Ben Pritchard, chief executive officer, AVK, says: “Speed-to-power is now a defining opportunity for European data centre operators. Our new partnership with partners group will allow us to meet our customers exactly where the market demands. From the moment we launched our first microgrid, we recognized the challenge and the opportunity facing developers and operators globally. By adding capital to our power solutions portfolio, we can turn speed-to-power from an ambition into action. I am excited to lead AVK into this new chapter alongside partners group, leveraging the firm’s deep operational expertise in the data centre sector and power markets.”
Partners group will invest in AVK through its fourth direct infrastructure program, which recently held a final close at over USD 15 billion. Partners group has over USD 40 billion in total assets under management across its infrastructure business. The firm was advised by A&O Shearman, PwC, EY, Altman Solon, Arcadis, and Clifford Chance on the transaction.
