An investment consortium that includes BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), xAI (X.AI) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has planned a $40B takeover of one of the world’s largest data center operators, the Financial Times reported.
The investment consortium, which includes BlackRock’s affiliate Global Infrastructure Partners, or GIP, and Abu Dhabi fund MGX, will acquire Texas-based Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management in its first deal since the collaboration was formed a year ago, the report added.
BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft, and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
The investment group will use a $100B data centre capital pool they have formed which is called the AI Infrastructure Partnership, to combine the capabilities of large tech companies and specialized investment groups, the report noted.
The collaboration is securing the capital and high-performance semiconductors, industrial materials, and energy required to quickly build data centers as the demand for the computing power needed for AI algorithms exceeds existing capacity, according to the report.
The group’s backers also include Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek and the Kuwait Investment Authority. Large suppliers to data center manufacturers such as GE Vernova, utility NextEra Energy and Cisco are also members.
The consortium has earmarked $30B in equity and another $70B in debt financing to acquire and build data center companies.
The group intends to expand Aligned quickly in the coming years, more than doubling its 50 data center campuses in the U.S. and Latin America, the report noted.
Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, told the news outlet that the data center collaboration planned to build and lease highly specialized data center to large technology companies, instead of such customers building the properties themselves. These projects will allow tech companies to keep data center off their balance sheets, helping them command higher stock valuations, the report added.
The BlackRock founder also said that deal was proof of the benefits of its large acquisitions in private capital like its $12.5B takeover of GIP last year. “To me, this is a perfect marriage of Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem and its commitment to AI, combined with the strength of BlackRock and GIP,” Fink added.
Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi, chief executive of MGX, said the collaboration could ultimately supply significant new data center capacity going online in the coming years.
“We very much believe that the requirements for global capacity build-out — both from a cloud and AI perspective — are massive. We’re talking about roughly 20 gigawatts a year globally, and about half of that would be in the U.S,” he added.