EdgeMode acquired Blackberry AIF in July of this year, taking ownership of its 23 data centres currently under development, and will build solar facilities and battery energy storage systems (BESS) at each of the five sites covered by this week’s deal. “Together, we will deliver a new generation of Tier III data centres powered by clean, affordable solar energy,” said José Mora, Blackberry AIF CEO and executive chairman of the new joint venture. Already this year, technology giants have invested in new solar projects specifically to provide power for data centres. In June, Amazon invested US$13 billion into new solar projects for its data centres in Australia, while Google signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) to use electricity generated by solar projects to power its data centres in January. Last year, Microsoft also invested more than US$10 billion in a combined solar and wind portfolio to install over 10.5GW of capacity to meet electricity demand from its data centres.