Crédit Agricole CIB Arranges US$2.325 Billion Green Loan for AirTrunk's JHB2 Data Centre in Johor Bahru
Crédit Agricole CIB has arranged US$2.325 billion in green project financing for AirTrunk's JHB2 hyperscale data centre campus in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, the bank announced Aug. 3, 2026. The transaction is the largest green project finance deal for a single data centre in Malaysia and the largest single-asset financing AirTrunk has completed to date.
Deal Structure and Roles
Crédit Agricole CIB served as both Global Coordinator and Green Loan Coordinator on the transaction, coordinating a syndicated lender group and designing the green loan framework governing the facility's environmental key performance indicators, reporting obligations, and margin mechanics. The financing is structured as a project finance facility, reflecting the capital-intensive nature of hyperscale data centre development rather than a conventional corporate loan.
Proceeds are designated for the sustainable development of the JHB2 campus, with energy and water efficiency targets embedded in the loan's terms. AirTrunk has committed to pursuing industry-leading energy and water efficiency through innovative cooling technologies. Margin savings generated through the green loan structure are allocated to social impact programmes in Malaysia, including recycled water initiatives, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education, and disaster relief.
Strategic Context: Johor Bahru as a Regional Data Centre Hub
AirTrunk's JHB2 campus is positioned as part of a cross-border digital infrastructure corridor serving cloud and artificial intelligence workloads that cannot be accommodated within Singapore's constrained land and power environment. Singapore imposed a moratorium on new data centre construction between 2019 and 2022 and now grants capacity selectively, with a strong preference for high-efficiency, sustainable facilities. That policy environment has pushed operators to develop campus-scale capacity in Johor Bahru, which offers proximity to Singapore alongside Malaysian land, power, and government incentive economics.
Malaysia's federal and state governments have designated data centres and digital infrastructure as strategic investment sectors, offering incentive packages in Johor and other regions to attract hyperscale operators. Johor Bahru has emerged as a primary overflow cluster for Singapore, with multiple regional and global operators announcing large-scale builds in the Iskandar region. AirTrunk describes itself as a hyperscale data centre specialist providing a scalable platform for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and data-intensive customers across the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.
Sustainable Finance Framework
The transaction reflects a broader pattern at Crédit Agricole CIB of linking digital infrastructure investment with green and sustainability frameworks. The bank previously structured the first EU Taxonomy-aligned green loan in the European cloud sector for OVHcloud and supported STT GDC's expansion into South Korea's data centre market. The JHB2 financing extends that strategy into Southeast Asian hyperscale campuses.
Antoine Rose, Head of Sustainable Investment Banking for Asia Pacific and Middle East at Crédit Agricole CIB, said the facility demonstrates how innovative financing can help accelerate the delivery of efficient digital infrastructure while supporting Malaysia's ambitions in the digital economy. "As sustainable finance continues to evolve, investors increasingly demand financing structures that link capital with transparent environmental performance," Rose said.
Jasmine Zhang, Head of Telecom Finance APAC at Crédit Agricole CIB, described the transaction as setting a new benchmark for sustainable data centre financing in Malaysia. "As a long-standing partner to AirTrunk, we're proud to have structured this financing and look forward to supporting their continued growth across the region," Zhang said.
Market Implications
The scale of the JHB2 financing reflects the capital intensity of hyperscale data centre development, where single-campus builds increasingly require multi-bank project financings running into the billions of dollars. Global hyperscale cloud and AI demand has pushed Asia-Pacific data centre absorption to elevated levels, with Johor Bahru and other secondary nodes positioned as power-rich alternatives to supply-constrained Tier-1 markets.
By embedding measurable environmental performance metrics directly into the loan structure, the transaction ties capital cost to operational sustainability outcomes, a structure Crédit Agricole CIB indicated it expects to see replicated across the region.