KENILWORTH, N.J. — CoreWeave, a data center owner and operator based in Roseland, N.J., plans to invest $1.2 billion into the development of a new data center facility in Kenilworth, roughly 20 miles outside New York City and 35 miles from Princeton, N.J. The facility marks CoreWeave’s first data center in New Jersey, despite the state housing the company’s corporate headquarters.
The company — which trademarks itself as “the AI Hyperscaler” — has signed a full-building industrial lease at 11 NEST, a 280,000-square-foot former lab and manufacturing building within The Northeast Science & Technology (NEST) Center. CoreWeave will convert the industrial building into a new hyperscale data center.
“CoreWeave’s commitment to invest over $1 billion at the NEST campus demonstrates New Jersey’s leading role in artificial intelligence (AI), and our innovation strategies are working,” says New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “Through collaboration with utilities, government, investors and real estate developers, we’re committed to attracting businesses that will build an innovation economy for the future.”
A partnership between Onyx Equities, Machine Investment Group and Pivot Real Estate Partners owns NEST. The partnership plans to invest $50 million for the new data center project, which will be powered by utility provider PSE&G. A construction timeline was not released.
“CoreWeave will be a key cornerstone of NEST, as life sciences and biotechnology tenants at the campus will benefit from CoreWeave’s advanced cloud infrastructure to support their AI-driven projects and boost research-and-development capabilities,” says John Saraceno, co-founder and managing principal for Onyx Equities.
Formerly the global headquarters of Merck, NEST spans more than 2 million square feet situated on 100 acres. The Onyx Equities-led partnership acquired NEST in February 2023 and has since begun work to develop the campus into a hub of research and innovation in the Northeast. The campus is zoned for life sciences and data center uses, according to Onyx Equities.
CoreWeave more than quadrupled its data center footprint in 2023 and is on track to end 2024 with 28 data centers globally. The company announced in June that it will invest $2.2 billion to expand and open a trio of data centers in continental Europe.
CoreWeave has had a busy 2024, hiring several C-suite executives, as well as securing several new capital infusions. The company recently closed a $650 million credit facility led by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and secured $7.5 billion in debt financing led by Blackstone, Magnetar and Coatue. Between May 2023 and May 2024, CoreWeave raised more than $12 billion from equity and debt investors.
— John Nelson