Canada pension giant to buy 8.2% stake in CtrlS data centers

CPP Investments is moving deeper into India’s data-center boom with an investment package worth up to INR 70 billion, or about C$1 billion, that gives the Canadian pension giant an 8.2% stake in CtrlS Datacenters Ltd. The deal also sets up a joint venture to build hyperscale data center campuses across India, a bet on rising demand from cloud services, data localization and AI workloads.

The package splits into INR 40 billion for the equity stake and up to INR 30 billion for the new venture. Under the JV, CPP Investments will own 48% and CtrlS will hold 52%, keeping operational control anchored with the Indian operator while bringing in long-term institutional capital. India’s Competition Commission approved the stake purchase in May 2026, clearing a transaction that gives CPP Investments its first direct equity investment in an Indian data center operator.

CtrlS, founded in 2007, launched its first data center in Hyderabad in 2009 and says it now operates 16 data centers across nine locations in India. The company says its network spans Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata and New Delhi, and that it is Asia’s largest Rated-4 data center network. CtrlS also says it serves 60 of the Fortune 500 companies and offers a 99.995% uptime service-level agreement, positioning itself as an enterprise-grade platform for banks, cloud providers and AI infrastructure users.

The deal extends a buildout that was already moving quickly. In October 2023, CtrlS said it planned to invest $2 billion over six years in hyperscale data centers, net zero goals and talent expansion. By June 2024, it said it had more than 250 MW of live data center footprint across eight major Indian markets. The new pension-fund backing suggests that large investors believe the next phase of growth will be driven by sustained demand for compute-heavy AI services, not just traditional enterprise storage.

For CPP Investments, the partnership fits a broader push into digital infrastructure. In February 2026, CPP Investments and Equinix announced a US$4 billion acquisition of Nordic data center provider atNorth, signaling that data centers are becoming a more important part of the pension fund’s global private-market strategy. In India, the test will be whether power supply, land, fiber connectivity and regulatory approvals can keep pace with hyperscale demand. If they do, CtrlS could emerge as one of the clearest beneficiaries of the global capital race behind AI infrastructure.