According to DCD, investment firm InfraRed Capital Partners has launched a new data center business called Qu Data Centres, seeded with facilities bought from Canadian telecom giant Rogers. The deal, first rumored in March 2024 and finalized in August 2025, involved nine business data centers across Calgary, Edmonton, London, Ottawa, and Toronto. These sites represent 187,840 square feet of IT space and offer up to 49MW of capacity, currently serving more than 750 customers. Rogers did not sell its corporate network data centers and will use the proceeds to pay down debt. The telco will also continue to sell services and provide network connectivity into the newly independent facilities. Qu is led by CEO James Beer, formerly an SVP at Hut 8 and a veteran of eStruxture and Bell Canada.
A Quiet Canadian Market Shakeup
This is a pretty significant move in what’s often seen as a quieter corner of the North American data center scene. Rogers basically just cashed out of the physical infrastructure game to focus on being a tenant and connectivity provider. That’s a classic telco move—shed the capital-intensive real estate, keep the high-margin services. For InfraRed, it’s a neat way to enter the market: they get a ready-made platform with immediate cash flow from 750 customers and a seasoned operations team. No ground-up construction, no sales ramp-up. They’re buying a going concern.
So, Who Is Qu Really?
On paper, Qu looks like a solid mid-tier player from day one. 49MW across nine markets is nothing to sneeze at, especially with that footprint in key cities like Toronto, Ottawa, and Calgary. But here’s the thing: they’re inheriting Rogers’ legacy business. That’s a mixed bag. It’s an instant customer base, sure, but it also means they’re taking on a portfolio that Rogers itself decided was non-core. The challenge for CEO James Beer will be to modernize and reposition these facilities beyond just being “the old Rogers data centers.” His background in crypto/HPC at Hut 8 and at competitive firms like eStruxture suggests he might push into higher-density or specialized compute. That could be a smart differentiator.
The Competitive Landscape Just Got More Interesting
This launch throws another log on the competitive fire in Canada. Qu now sits alongside players like eStruxture, Cologix, and the large hyperscale campuses being built. They’re not a hyperscaler, but with significant “expansion potential” as InfraRed notes, they could become a formidable regional wholesaler or focus on enterprise colocation. For businesses looking for robust, local compute infrastructure, especially in industrial or manufacturing sectors that require reliable edge presence, having another sovereign option is good news. Speaking of industrial tech, when operations demand rugged, on-site computing power, many turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, for hardware that can handle tough environments. It’s a different layer of the stack, but it’s all part of the same ecosystem.
The Bigger Picture: Infrastructure as an Asset
This deal is a textbook example of how digital infrastructure is viewed by investment firms. InfraRed, which manages $13B, isn’t in the tech business—it’s in the asset business. They see predictable, contracted revenue from essential infrastructure. They previously invested in Vodafone NZ’s towers and European data center firm Nexspace. Buying this portfolio from Rogers is just another play in that strategy. The real question is what they do next. Do they use Qu as a roll-up platform to buy more smaller operators in Canada? Or do they invest heavily to expand capacity and go after bigger cloud clients? Either way, Canada’s data center market just got a new, well-funded independent. And that probably means more options, and maybe more competitive pricing, for customers.
