Iberian developer Quetta Data Centers, a vehicle managed by Spanish real estate fund Azora and advised by Core Capital, is reevaluating whether a Portuguese data centre scale-up would be the most strategic state of play, citing ‘aggressive’ competitor pricing.

Despite having land plots and designs etched out, the original concept for a site in Lisbon is being reassessed.

“We haven’t made public any plans in Lisbon – it may be the next part of the pipeline, maybe not,” communications director Miguel Ángel González Ezquerra said.

Overshadowed by huge data campuses like Start Campus in Sines (1.2 GW), or MERLIN Edged (180 MW), five data centres in Vila Franca de Xira, the midsize developer said it was crucial to reassess the market because of large deployments such as these.

At present, the developer is scaling up a 20 MW site in Tres Cantos, Madrid, and another 10 MW site in Molins De Rei, Barcelona.

“We started the construction of Barcelona and Madrid in December and we should be ready in 18 to 24 months – that’s the plan,” González Ezquerra said.

“We still don’t know if the market is going to be able to absorb many offerings, and with MW, there is a lot of hype,” he said.

For now, though, Quetta’s priority is to build the first 60 MW (across six data centres) and rent that capacity to interesting customers, with the healthy backing of Azora’s EUR 500m investment package.

The company has also signed a PPA with two unnamed Spanish utilities for the first two data centres, securing energy for the projects.

Only when Madrid and Barcelona, and possibly Lisbon, are complete, will the developer seek a debt package to scale up its capacity beyond 100 MW.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM Europe subscribers.