Rest Super commits $1 billion to Quinbrook for green data centres

Rest Super has announced a billion-dollar investment with Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners that will go towards clean energy infrastructure, renewables, and green data centres.

The super fund earmarked Quinbrook’s Supernode campus in Brisbane as one beneficiary of its investment.

The $2.5 billion Brisbane Supernode build was announced in July 2022, and at the time, Quinbrook and Supernode said they will contract Queensland-based renewable energy companies to supply the facility with up to 800MW of power.

The facility will also include battery storage to ease the load on diesel for its backup requirements.

Chief investment officer Andrew Lill said “sustainable digitisation” is important, since it allows the transformation and connectivity of the global economy to continue “in an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly manner”.

"In a world increasingly reliant on data, and through the global growth in cloud-based technologies and AI, data centres have become big business and demand for this critical infrastructure is expected to accelerate,” Lill said.

"Maximising their energy efficiency and minimising their environmental impact through our commitment to Quinbrook is just one way we believe we can contribute to strong long-term financial benefits for Rest members, while supporting our objective to achieve a net zero carbon footprint for the fund by 2050."

To date, Quinbrook claims investment of more than $US8.2 billion ($12.5 billion) in energy infrastructure assets.