Margaux Platforms is launching an AI and cloud infrastructure investment vehicle led by former Global Switch executives to finance next-generation compute facilities.

Former Global Switch executives will lead Astor, a new AI and cloud infrastructure company backed by London-based private market investment firm Margaux Platforms.

The company will develop ready-to-build powered land and agile, multi-tenant edge data center facilities. According to the announcement, it will give compute providers access to shovel-ready sites pre-equipped with flexible reference designs for the “full spectrum” of modern computing workloads. These high-efficiency colocation projects are specifically designed to “overcome the ‘last-mile’ obstacle of delivering IT capacity close to end-users in grid-constrained locations.”

Targeting metropolitan facilities with less than 100MW of capacity, the company will focus its efforts on developed OECD countries, noting that Europe is “three to five years behind the US in AI and cloud penetration.” The announcement states that “cloud penetration, aging grid infrastructure and lengthening power connection queues increasingly pose a threat to Europe’s economic and digital sovereignty ambitions.”

The venture is led by Elliot Dittes, formerly Global Switch’s global head of project delivery and engineering, who will serve as CEO alongside several other former Global Switch executives.

Dittes commented: “The next phase of digital growth demands agile infrastructure that can be delivered quickly even as access to grid power becomes more constrained. Astor meets this challenge by unlocking capacity where it’s needed most with best-in-class design solutions that adapt to environments and evolving compute workloads for the world’s critical technologies of scale.”