Orange and Morrison announced an exclusivity agreement on Monday to create a jointly controlled data centre company in France, backed by a €3 billion investment programme combining Orange assets, Morrison equity, and debt. The venture targets 400 megawatts of capacity, close to ten times what Orange operates today.
Orange would contribute five French data centres to the vehicle. Morrison would supply the equity funding to scale the platform beyond that starting base.
The sovereignty framing
Both companies pitched the deal as an effort to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty, describing it as a “sovereign offering” capable of serving fast-growing cloud and AI demand from Orange and Orange Business customers. The companies also noted that French electricity is among the least emission-intensive in Europe.
There is a wrinkle in that framing. Morrison is a New Zealand-based infrastructure asset manager, founded in 1988, whose portfolio includes Infratil, UK operator Kao Data, CDC Data Centres, and Vodafone New Zealand.
