{"id":539962,"date":"2026-07-23T07:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539962\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T07:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:26:27","slug":"mercury-invests-53-million-in-nz-ai-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539962\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury invests $53 million in NZ \u2018AI factory\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercury NZ has acquired a 12.7% stake in Datagrid NZ, the country\u2019s first \u2018AI factory\u2019, for $53 million (US$30 million).<\/p>\n

The state-controlled power generator and retailer says it made the investment to support long-term renewable electricity demand growth and strengthen its position \u201calongside one of New Zealand’s most advanced, large-scale, digital infrastructure projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury chief executive Stew Hamilton has also been appointed as a director of Datagrid NZ as part of the investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a deep renewable development pipeline, and long-duration demand from large electricity users like Datagrid NZ provides us with the revenue certainty that underpins our investments in new renewable generation developments,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Singapore-based Datagrid NZ<\/a>, which has secured approval to build a $3.5 billion AI (artificial intelligence) datacentre at North Makarewa, Southland, describes itself as \u201cNew Zealand\u2019s first AI factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is aiming to have the Southland datacentre operational by 2028, where it will support high-density IT and AI workloads.<\/p>\n

The 360MW project holds resource consent and a final investment decision is expected to be made later this year, according to Mercury on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Mercury\u2019s minority stake investment in Datagrid NZ was funded from existing capital facilities and within capital management settings.<\/p>\n

Tim Thompson, Mercury\u2019s executive wholesale general manager, says the investment will improve Mercury\u2019s understanding of how large-scale AI and data centre demand will develop in NZ.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt strengthens our position for future long-term offtake, and provides us with a closer link between future customer demand and renewable generation investment. It is a staged investment with appropriate governance and downside protection,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mercury also signed a 140MW power purchase option agreement with Datagrid in March 2026, which the gentailer says will create a pathway for the project\u2019s renewable electricity supply.<\/p>\n

Datagrid NZ founder and chair, R\u00e9mi Galasso, says the speed of delivery was crucial and closing this round of investment funding \u201callows us to move decisively.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He described the Mercury investment as a \u201cstrategic step for us, not just an electricity supply arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NZ Government holds a legislated 51% controlling stake in the share market listed Mercury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercury NZ has acquired a 12.7% stake in Datagrid NZ, the country\u2019s first \u2018AI factory\u2019, for $53 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-539962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}