The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is joining Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and data centre owner Equinix to form a joint venture aiming to raise $15-billion for buying land and building new data centres in the United States (all figures U.S.). The Globe's James Bradshaw writes that this marks CPPIB's first direct investment in U.S.-based data centre projects and its initial venture with Equinix, although CPPIB already owned a small interest in the company. CPPIB and GIC -- the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., which invests Singapore's sovereign wealth -- will each own 37.5 per cent of the joint venture, and Equinix will own 25 per cent. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but include plans to take on debt to reach the $15-billion target. There is rapidly growing demand for data centres, which form the backbone of a boom in artificial intelligence and a major shift to cloud computing. Much of that need comes from the largest global cloud computing providers, called "hyperscalers" -- such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform -- as well as other major technology companies and corporate customers.