Bain Capital has started reaching out to potential buyers for its stake in Bridge Data Centers, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the private equity firm eyes exits amid rising demand for AI infrastructure. Citigroup and JPMorgan are running the sale process and have sent out preliminary marketing materials to investors to sell up to a 70% stake in BDC, according to the people, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss private deliberations. Bain invested in BDC in 2017. The size of its stake is not publicly known. Bain may also consider a continuation fund that would allow it to hold a stake in the business for longer while bringing in new investors to continue scaling, CNBC has learned. Considerations are at an early stage and no final decisions have been made, both sources said. Bain and Citigroup declined to comment. BDC and JPMorgan had not responded to requests for comment as this article went live. Singapore-headquartered BDC operates large data-center campuses in Malaysia, Thailand, and India. The company raised $2.8 billion in debt financing last year. A frenzy of dealmaking Bain’s potential sale of its BDC stake came amid a dealmaking frenzy in the sector, buoyed by surging demand for AI compute capacity, as hyperscalers and investors race to secure AI-ready asset and infrastructure platforms. Dealmaking activity in the tech sector surged over 40% in 2025 to a record-high of nearly $1 trillion, driven by robust demand for AI infrastructure, according to Pitchbook. “Data centers are the ‘pick-and-shovel’ infrastructure of the AI revolution — unlike AI software, they generate predictable, contract-based cash flows underpinned by long-term leases from hyperscale tenants,” Alex Ma, managing partner at Singapore-based family office Alpha Omega Holdings, told CNBC. Investor appetite for data centers in Asia has remained strong, Ma added, viewing them as a “favoured defensive play” for investors seeking stability amid heightened market uncertainty. Bain has been reshuffling its data center portfolio in recent years. In January, it sold another data-centre operator, WinTriX DC Group’s China business, formerly known as Chindata, in a transaction valued at about $4 billion . Bain merged BDC with Chindata in 2019 and then separated the two businesses in 2023, when Bain took the Nasdaq-listed Chindata private in a $3.16 billion deal . The AI investment boom has fueled growing concerns over the health of the capital expenditure cycle, with some doubting whether the lofty valuations can be justified by their ability to generate returns. Geopolitical risks and client concentration also weigh on investors’ confidence in the sector, Ma said, adding that diversification across geographies and tenant base is essential for any infrastructure operator. TikTok owner ByteDance has been the anchor tenant for BDC’s hyperscale data center in Malaysia. BDC currently has six data centers across Malaysia, two in Thailand, and one in India. Chinese technology companies, like ByteDance, have increasingly used data centers outside China, particularly in Malaysia , to secure access to high-end Nvidia chips that Washington has blocked them from buying directly. Nvidia was later permitted to sell its more advanced H200 chip to China, provided the U.S. got a 25% cut of sales. CEO Jensen Huang said this week that it was gearing up to provide the processors to some customers in China. BDC said Monday that it planned to invest up to 5 billion Singaporean dollars ($3.9 billion) in the home country to develop advanced AI-powered digital infrastructure, aiming to expand its regional capacity to approximately 2 gigawatts by 2030. Their capacity could grow to up to 3 gigawatts globally by then through partnerships with peer platforms in Europe and the U.S., according to a company statement.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/18/bain-capital-bridge-data-centres-ai-buildout.html
