Data center operator grabs San Jose office and commercial buildings

SAN JOSE — A major provider of data centers bought several buildings in South San Jose in a deal that suggests the tech industry’s hunt for access to hubs for massive computer processing has yet to run its course.

Through an affiliate, Equinix paid $51 million for six buildings at 6800 Santa Teresa Blvd., 140 Great Oaks Blvd., and 6541 Via Del Oro, documents filed on Feb. 24 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office show.

Kennedy Wilson, a real estate investment firm, was the seller in the deal. In 2020, Kennedy Wilson paid $53.5 million for the buildings.

Tenants currently occupy at least some of the spaces in the buildings.

In the deal, Equinix used an affiliate name that resembles the name patterns for LLCs the company uses to own data center sites in Santa Clara County.

In January, an Equinix-owned data center at 123 Great Oaks Blvd. added 20 megawatts of power, which brought the site’s total to 40 megawatts.

The addition of the electricity supply to the site made the Equinix data center the first project to land increased energy under a deal between San Jose and PG&E that’s designed to guarantee power deliveries for big energy users.

As tech companies chase dreams of an artificial intelligence future, the quest has created demand for huge data centers — and plenty of electricity — to accommodate the vast digital processing needed for AI-linked computations.