Standard Chartered Supports VIRTUS £2.45B Data Centre Loan

In Short

Standard Chartered supported VIRTUS Data Centres’ £2.45 billion financing package to fund new and expanding data centres across the UK and Europe.

What Happened

Standard Chartered said it supported VIRTUS Data Centres in completing a £2.45 billion financing package for long-term expansion.

Standard Chartered acted as coordinator and lead arranger roles on the deal, and it was also the green loan coordinator. A green loan is financing tied to projects with defined environmental goals, such as energy efficiency.

The committed funding includes a £1.2 billion green capex facility. Capex is capital expenditure, meaning money earmarked for building or upgrading physical assets. The facility includes both term and revolving tranches, which means VIRTUS can draw down money in different ways over time instead of taking it all at once.

Standard Chartered said the financing is one of the largest data centre bank financings completed in the UK to date.

VIRTUS said the funding framework supports its next phase of growth. Plans mentioned include a 78 MW AI-ready Saunderton campus in Buckinghamshire, further investment in its LONDON19 site in Slough, and continued expansion across Europe.

Standard Chartered also pointed to earlier support for VIRTUS’ Marienpark data centre campus development in Berlin.

Why It Matters

Data centres are the warehouses of the internet, they host servers that run cloud computing, enterprise software, and AI workloads. When more capacity comes online, it can ease shortages and reduce pressure on pricing for businesses that need reliable compute.

The green capex portion matters because power use is a core issue in data centre growth. Financing that rewards measurable efficiency can shape what gets built and how operators manage energy and cooling.

For African tech companies that depend on European cloud regions for hosting, backups, and compliance, more investment in European digital infrastructure can improve resilience. It can also influence where hyperscalers and colocation providers, meaning third-party data centre landlords, choose to expand next.