(Reuters) – A group of investors including BlackRock and Nvidia will buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies said on Wednesday, as the expansion of AI infrastructure continues.
The deal underscores an intensifying race to expand the costly and supply-limited infrastructure needed to develop artificial intelligence technology, as companies race to build sophisticated AI models.
The acquisition follows a series of mega-deals aimed at securing coveted computing capacity. ChatGPT creator OpenAI in recent weeks unveiled deals totaling about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, enough to power about 20 million U.S. homes.
The investment consortium, called the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), has an initial goal of deploying $30 billion in equity, with the potential to reach $100 billion, including debt.
This is AIP’s first investment and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026.
“With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we are continuing our goal of providing the infrastructure needed to power the future of AI,” said Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock and Chairman of AIP.
AIP also includes xAI and Microsoft, as well as the Kuwait Investment Authority and Singapore state investor Temasek as key investors.
Aligned designs, builds and operates data centers for hyperscalers, neoclouds and enterprises.
Its portfolio includes 50 campuses and more than 5 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity, including assets under development, located across the United States and Latin America.
Aligned will remain based in Dallas, Texas, and will be led by CEO Andrew Schaap.
LARGE INVESTMENTS
Aligned’s $12 billion fundraising earlier this year marks one of the largest infusions of private capital into a data center company. But the scale of funding needed to keep pace with demand is only increasing.
The capital-intensive business of expanding AI infrastructure has attracted hundreds of billions of dollars in investment from large technology companies, startups, private equity funds and infrastructure funds.
OpenAI last week unveiled a 6-gigawatt AI chip supply deal with AMD that includes an option to buy a stake in the chipmaker, days after revealing that Nvidia planned to invest up to $100 billion in the startup and provide it with data center systems of at least 10 gigawatts of capacity.
Morgan Stanley estimates that major cloud computing companies, including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and Coreweave, are on track to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year.
