According to the Bloomberg report, Blackstone has emerged as the preferred bidder of AirTrunk as it offered more cash than it rivals. 

Macquarie Group and PSP Investments, which own a majority stake in AirTrunk, are in discussions with Blackstone to close the deal. However, the companies declined to comment on the acquisition.

AirTrunk was reportedly up for sale for A$12 billion last January. Bloomberg back then reported that Macquarie Asset Management and PSP Investments could start with sale in a matter of weeks.

Then, Data Centre Dynamics reported that Blackstone was interested in buying the company a month later. Then, it made a bid in June with DigitalBridge and GIP to acquire AirTrunk.

Now, Blackstone seems to be in the perfect position to get AirTrunk. If the deal pushes through, it would be the largest transaction in Australia this year.

The Financial Times reported that Blackstone has been ramping its data centre portfolio in recent years. Its portfolio and other data centres under construction are valued at US$55 billion.

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said the company plans to invest billions more in "prospective pipeline development" during an earnings call in June.

AirTrunk this year commenced the construction of its 20 megawatt (MW) data centre OSK1 in West Osaka. In May, it opened its second data centre in Tokyo, TOK2, scalable to over 110 MW.

It then commenced operations in Malaysia, following the opening of its flagship Malaysian 150 MW hyperscale data cenre in Johor Bahru (JHB1).