Mayer Brown has advised leading private investment firm Bain Capital on its strategic partnership with Aquila Group to build a leading European data centre platform. As part of the cooperation, Bain Capital has acquired an 80% stake in AQ Compute, the data centre business founded by Aquila Group in 2020, with the Aquila Group retaining a minority stake in the business.
The strategic partnership, which has a targeted multi-billion Euro investment volume, aims to significantly accelerate AQ Compute’s plans to develop and operate sustainable date centres for hyperscale and AI customers across Europe.
AQ Compute provides modular and AI-ready data centre and colocation services, primarily powered by clean energy. The company launched its first sustainable data centre near Oslo in 2024, with additional projects underway in Barcelona, Milan and beyond. Bain Capital supports this growth through its capital investment and global expertise in the data centre industry, including its successful development of Bridge Data Centres in Asia.
Bain Capital is one of the world’s leading private multi-asset alternative investment firms. Since its founding in 1984, it has organically expanded into numerous asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, real estate, life sciences, insurance and other strategic areas of focus. The firm has offices on four continents, more than 1,750 employees and approximately $185 billion in assets under management.
The Mayer Brown team was led by partners Charles Malpass and Kate Ball-Dodd and included Corporate & Securities partners Alastair Dolman and Harriet Hainsworth, senior associates Sam Gregory and Madeleine Pryde and associates Alexander Sperling, Joey Lee and Georgia Stylianou, Tax partners Ben Eaton and Sam Riesenberg and senior associates Tamar Ruiz and Kathryn Buddington, Real Estate partner Caroline Humble, counsel David Gervais and senior associates Tim Collier and Sam Harris, Antitrust & Competition partner Daniel Vowden, counsel Mark Hills and senior associate Kathryn Lloyd, Finance partners Massimo Amoruso and Andrew Papworth, Legal Project Managers Candace Brown and Daniela Digilio (all London), Corporate & Securities partner Carlos Robles y Zepf, IP partner Ulrich Worm and Employment & Benefits associate Pauline Stadler (all Frankfurt).
