ADB lends Rönesans $75 million in its first digital loan in Türkiye

The Asian Development Bank signed a $75 million loan with Rönesans Holding on 22 October to fund renewable energy and a hyperscale data centre in Türkiye, the bank said. It is ADB's first loan to Rönesans and its first digital infrastructure financing in the country.

The bank's release on the signing says the money will add battery storage to the group's renewable platform by 2029 and develop a data centre powered by hybrid renewable energy. Leah Gutierrez, ADB's director general for Central and West Asia, said ADB helps mobilise long-term capital in sectors where long-term financing remains limited. İpek Ilıcak Kayaalp, chair of Rönesans, said the financing would help accelerate investments in renewable energy and digital infrastructure.

The project data sheet lists the Rönesans Corporate Infrastructure Loan Project, number 60163-001, as approved on 14 August 2026 from ADB's ordinary capital resources, under the information and communication technology sector.

A $375 million facility

ADB's loan is one part of a larger deal. The report and recommendation to ADB's board, dated July 2026, says it belongs to a five-year syndicated corporate facility of $375 million with a grace period of up to two years. The International Finance Corporation is lead arranger and commits up to $150 million. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, at up to $75 million each, and ADB are named as potential participants. On those figures ADB holds 20 per cent of the facility and IFC 40 per cent, on Backhaul's arithmetic.

The proceeds are for general corporate purposes, the paper says, with a focus on two parts of Rönesans' capital spending: wind power and battery storage within a pipeline whose size is redacted, and a hyperscale-ready data centre campus with advanced cooling, whose first phase is expected to have a capacity of 22 megawatts. The paper presents the loan as stable, long-term dollar funding that diversifies the group's funding base while domestic and regional markets are constrained.

What the bank will measure

The paper's results framework sets the targets. By 2029 at least 50 MW of wind capacity, 50 MWh of colocated battery storage and at least 22 MW of energy-efficient data centre IT load are to be installed. By 2030 at least 22 MW of IT load is to be available to tenants, with an annual power usage effectiveness of 1.30, 90 GWh a year of extra generation, emissions from the wind projects cut by at least 39,060 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, and at least seven operating jobs. A footnote says the data centre will be colocation-based and air-cooled and is expected to meet green building standards of at least LEED Gold equivalent. One of the stated assumptions is that a partnership with an experienced global data centre operator is maintained.

The paper does not name the site, the city or that operator. In September Digital Realty and Rönesans Infrastructure announced a joint venture for a campus in Ankara designed for more than 22 MW of IT capacity and due for completion in 2028, according to the US operator's release. The figures are close, but neither document links the ADB loan to that project, so the two cannot be treated as the same build on the published record.

Against the national target

ADB ties the project to the government's AI Action Plan for 2026 to 2030, which, the paper says, aims to take Türkiye's data centre capacity to 1 gigawatt by 2030 and draw $10 billion of private investment into data centres and other AI infrastructure. A 22 MW first phase is 2.2 per cent of that gigawatt, on Backhaul's arithmetic. The paper also gives the power context: gross electricity consumption rose 2.1 per cent to 360.9 TWh in 2025 and is projected at 455.3 TWh by 2030 under the national energy plan.

The signing came four days before Türk Telekom signed a $1 billion club loan for 5G and fibre. The ADB documents give no interest margin, no drawdown schedule and no split of the $75 million between energy and the data centre; the paper lists five linked annexes, client information and implementation arrangements among them, and none is published with it. The project data sheet lists an environmental and social action plan dated June 2026 as the only other published project document.