CCOI News & Events

Cogent announced that its indirect wholly owned subsidiary, Cogent Fiber, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell ten data center facilities for an aggregate purchase price of $225M in cash to a newly formed entity sponsored by I Squared Capital. The 10 facilities are located in Phoenix, AZ, Anaheim, CA, Burbank, CA, Stockton, CA, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Elkridge, MD, Kansas City, MO, Nashville, TN and Houston, TX. The transaction is expected to close on the later of June 12, and the expiration or termination of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended.

I Squared Capital entered into a definitive Purchase and Sale Agreement to acquire a portfolio of ten data center facilities from Cogent Fiber for $225M in cash. The acquisition will seed a new U.S. data center operating platform focused on colocation, high-density deployments, and AI inference infrastructure. I Squared has committed up to $1B to build the platform through targeted capital investment, customer-led expansion, and additional acquisitions. The seed portfolio comprises approximately 53 megawatts of installed power capacity and approximately 259,000 square feet of available colocation space across nine U.S. markets: Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Baltimore, Houston, Nashville and Stockton. Together, these nine markets serve a combined population of over 63 million people. All ten facilities are purpose-built data centers owned fee simple and have room for expansion. In addition, these facilities are capable of supporting higher-density deployments, including liquid-cooling-enabled configurations. Upon closing, I Squared will establish a new, standalone operating platform to own, operate, and grow the business with a seasoned management team in place from day one. The data center facilities offer a compelling combination of owned real estate, existing high density-enabled power infrastructure, multi-carrier interconnection, and attractive geographic footprint, providing the foundation for a scaled platform. The facilities have diverse and dense fiber connectivity, with close proximity to the local internet exchanges, positioning them well for a broad range of workloads including retail colocation, wholesale colocation, content, and latency sensitive AI inference workloads. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals including the expiration of the applicable Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period.