Infralogic Investors Forum Australia 2024
Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney and Online
05
Mar
Harnessing the potential: The AI investment opportunity
AI has the potential to transform the way we engage with technology, power the industries of the future, and make society’s vital services more efficient – so long as the infrastructure is in place to deliver performance at scale. As AI-related applications and revenue continues to grow, the hype and scepticism surrounding the phenomenon are converging to spur billions of dollars of investment in data centres, fibre, and a raft of other services where AI has the power to drive change. For investors, understanding the changing landscape, complexities of deals, and scale in terms of greenfield development, energy demands, and security is key to delivering success.
- What does AI mean for infrastructure investors?
- How has demand changed data centre investments and what are the challenges?
- What is the outlook for deals and valuations in the fibre space?
- What are the risks that investors need to be aware of: macro and investment?
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SpeakersMelissa Grinter Partner CORRS CHAMBERS WESTGARTH
Gordon Hay Partner and Head of MIP & UTA MORRISON
Wilson Chung Managing Director, Investment Management DIGITALBRIDGE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
Alex Miller Senior Investment Director, Infrastructure CBUS
James Allan Senior Director QUINBROOK INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS
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Melissa is a partner at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Australia’s leading independent law firm. Melissa advises on the development, financing and acquisition of infrastructure and energy projectsacross the APAC region, including infrastructure directly benefiting from the rapid rise of AI such as data centres, and renewable energy generation and storage.
Having spent most of her career to date at international firms advising on projects across a variety of international markets including Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and the USA, Melissa brings her international infrastructure experience and exposure to the Australian market.
Gordon has overall responsibility for the Utilities Trust of Australia and Morrison Infrastructure Partnership. He is a member of the firm’s Asset Management Committee and Valuation Committee. Gordon is a senior infrastructure professional with 20 years of experience spanning investment management, corporate governance and corporate advisory across a wide range of infrastructure subsectors, including renewable and conventional power generation, electricity, gas and water utilities, transport and data infrastructure. Prior to joining Morrison, Gordon was a Principal in the Queensland Investment Corporation’s (QIC) Global Infrastructure business, where he led the Energy & Utilities investment team. Gordon is currently a Director of TransGrid and Uniti Group.
Wilson Chung is a Managing Director at DigitalBridge Investment Management. Mr. Chung is based in Singapore and focuses on identifying and evaluating Asia Pacific investment opportunities. He has over 15 years of infrastructure, private equity, and corporate finance experience in Asia.
Prior to joining DigitalBridge, Mr. Chung was most recently a Senior Vice President in the infrastructure principal investments team at Macquarie Capital. He led Macquarie’s balance sheet investments in digital infrastructure in Asia, with a focus on building platforms and developing greenfield datacenters and other digital infrastructure assets. Prior to that role, Mr. Chung worked in Macquarie Capital’s private capital markets team where he focused on principal investments and advisory mandates across the consumer and technology sectors in Asia.
Prior to Macquarie Capital, Mr. Chung was a co-founder and CFO of Litegrid Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong telecommunications infrastructure developer and prior to that, he covered consumer, industrial and telecom investments for Unitas Capital, an Asian regional private equity fund. Mr. Chung started his career as an investment banking analyst at Citigroup.
Mr. Chung received a Bachelor of Laws, with honors, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne.
Alex has over 25 years of investment and infrastructure experience spanning superannuation, infrastructure advisory, project finance, energy infrastructure and government.
Alex joined Cbus in 2016 and is currently Senior Investment Director, Infrastructure. His responsibilities include leading deal teams on the origination, execution and asset management of direct investments (including brownfield, greenfield and digital infrastructure investments), co-investments and fund manager investments for the Cbus Infrastructure team.
Alex has previously held senior roles including at KPMG (Infrastructure and Projects Group), Lloyds Banking Group (Project Finance), EnergyAustralia Network, Duke Energy International and Queensland Treasury. Alex holds postgraduate and undergraduate degrees in economics.
James is a Senior Director at Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and leads Quinbrook’s Digital Strategies. Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is a ‘value add’ investment manager with a specialist focus on low carbon and renewable energy supply, storage, grid stability and related assets and businesses.
James led Quinbrook’s acquisition of Habitat Energy (an AI focused battery optimisation platform) in 2021 and is a senior member of the Quinbrook investment team focusing on wind, solar, storage, green data centres, green hydrogen and decentralised investment strategies such as virtual power plants. He is responsible for the firm’s digital strategies including machine learning based algorithmic trading, hourly tracing and matching of renewable power and approaches to advanced weather prediction.
Prior to joining Quinbrook, James was a Director at Frontier Economics. James led the firm’s modelling group from 2007 to 2015 before opening the firm’s first office in Asia (sited in Singapore) in 2016. During his time at Frontier, James advised governments, regulators and market participants on all aspects of gas, electricity and green markets. His work included market design, price regulation, commercial transactions and merger clearances in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia amongst other countries.
James was an inaugural member of the Who’s Who Energy Expert list from 2018.