EdgeCore Secures $1.5 Billion to Build Two Fully Leased Hyperscale AI Data Centers in Northern Virginia
EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure closed $1.5 billion in senior secured term loans for AS01 and AS02 in Sterling, Virginia, two single-tenant facilities totaling 114 MW and 685,000 square feet, with AS01 going live in November 2026 and AS02 in July 2027.
Overview
EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure announced on April 21 that it has closed $1.5 billion in construction financing for two fully leased hyperscale data centers in Sterling, Virginia, according to a press release carried by Yahoo Finance. The two single-tenant facilities, AS01 and AS02, will offer a combined 114 megawatts of critical load across 685,000 square feet, with AS01 scheduled for initial occupancy in November 2026 and AS02 following in July 2027. The deal is one of the largest single-developer data center financings disclosed in Northern Virginia this year and underscores how lender appetite is keeping pace with the AI-driven build-out in the world’s most concentrated cloud market.
What We Know
The $1.5 billion package is structured as two limited-recourse senior secured term loans, per the EdgeCore announcement. The lead arrangers are Apterra Infrastructure Capital, Global Infrastructure Partners — the BlackRock-owned infrastructure investor — and ING Capital LLC, which also served as the sole Green Loan Structuring Agent on the AS01 tranche. Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP advised EdgeCore as borrower’s counsel and Milbank advised the lenders. Power for both buildings will be provided by Dominion Energy.
Lee Kestler, CEO of EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure, framed the financing as growth capital, stating that “Today’s financial announcement is especially exciting for EdgeCore as it is directly related to our accelerated growth plans.” The company says it currently has more than 1.4 gigawatts under development across Northern and Central Virginia, according to the same release.
EdgeCore is owned by Partners Group, which the release describes as managing over $185 billion in assets globally. Fentress Boyse, a Member of Management in Partners Group’s Infrastructure Americas team, and Julie Brewer, EVP of Finance at EdgeCore, are named as senior executives on the transaction.
The announcement does not disclose the identity of the hyperscale customer leasing AS01 and AS02; the release confirms only that both buildings are single-tenant and engineered to support high-density AI and cloud workloads.
A Market Already Under Power Strain
The new EdgeCore campuses arrive in a region whose grid is already absorbing unprecedented growth. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that commercial electricity sales in Virginia rose by nearly 30 million megawatt-hours between 2019 and 2025, growth that the EIA attributes to “a concentration of data centers” and that exceeded every state except Texas over that period. PJM’s Dominion zone, which covers Northern Virginia, recorded a summer peak load of 23,905 MW in 2025 — 23 percent higher than in 2019 — and a winter peak of 25,413 MW in the 2025-26 season, 45 percent higher than in the 2019-20 winter, the EIA reports. PJM expects peak summer load in the zone to grow at an average of 5.4 percent per year over the next ten years.
The EIA characterizes the Dominion zone as the “largest concentration of data centers in the world,” per its analysis. Loudoun County alone has 199 operating data centers with another 117 in development, Broadband Breakfast reported from a recent local government accounting. Dominion projects peak power demand for data centers in Virginia could rise to 13.3 gigawatts by 2038, up from about 2.8 gigawatts in 2022 — nearly a fivefold increase in 16 years, according to the same report. To meet that load, Dominion plans to invest $50.1 billion in capital projects, including transmission lines, substations, and generation resources, between 2025 and 2029, Broadband Breakfast reports.
Why a Green Loan Matters
The sustainability label attached to the AS01 tranche is not boilerplate. Green loans are debt instruments whose proceeds are restricted to projects that meet defined environmental criteria, and they typically require reporting against an agreed framework. EdgeCore’s decision to structure AS01 as a Green Loan with ING Capital as sole structuring agent commits the developer to disclosures on energy and water use, per the EdgeCore release. That matters in a region where data center water and power consumption have become live political issues: a single hyperscale building can draw more than 100 megawatts at a given time, equivalent to roughly 80,000 homes, and Northern Virginia facilities hold permits for more than 4,000 diesel backup generators totaling over 11 gigawatts of standby capacity, the same source reports.
What We Don’t Know
Neither EdgeCore nor Partners Group has named the hyperscale tenant for AS01 and AS02. The press release does not disclose the loan tenor, interest rate, or specific covenants attached to the Green Loan, nor does it specify the chip mix or cooling approach for the high-density build-out. EdgeCore also has not published a Dominion Energy interconnection date for either building, a detail that has become a key risk factor for Virginia data center developers as the utility works through a queue of new connection requests.
The pace at which AS01 and AS02 fill — and whether they come online on schedule given regional grid constraints — will be a useful read on whether the wall of new financing being raised for Virginia data centers can be turned into operating capacity at the speed the hyperscaler customers are now demanding.