BlackRock, NVIDIA, and Microsoft Lead $40 Billion Takeover of Aligned Data Centers in Global AI Infrastructure Push

Consortium aims to control 5 GW of computing power across 50 campuses 

TL;DR:

• A $40 billion deal led by BlackRock, NVIDIA, and Microsoft will acquire Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management.
• The consortium, named Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), plans to expand 5 GW of data capacity across 50 global sites.
• The transaction reflects an accelerating race to secure physical AI infrastructure—power, cooling, and compute—under direct tech and finance ownership.

The escalating demand for AI computing power just sparked one of the largest infrastructure deals in history. On October 15, 2025, a consortium led by BlackRock, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and xAI announced plans to acquire Aligned Data Centers for approximately $40 billion, according to reports from Reuters, CNBC, and The Block. The buyers, operating under the newly formed Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), are positioning themselves at the core of the AI hardware ecosystem, acquiring full ownership of Aligned from Macquarie Asset Management and its co-investors.

The deal underscores a strategic shift among major technology and financial players toward direct control of the physical backbone supporting artificial intelligence. AIP’s initial target is a $30 billion equity deployment, with projections to scale total investment—through additional capital and leverage—to as much as $100 billion. Completion is expected in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval. NVIDIA and Microsoft both saw share price fluctuations following the announcement, reflecting market anticipation of the consortium’s influence over the AI data economy.

Aligned Data Centers operates and plans approximately 5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity across 50 campuses spanning the United States and Latin America. Its geographic reach includes data hub regions in northern Virginia, Dallas, Chicago, Phoenix, Ohio, and Salt Lake City, alongside Latin American sites in São Paulo, Querétaro, and Santiago. The company will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas, under CEO Andrew Schaap, who will continue to lead operations after the acquisition.

Macquarie Asset Management, which began investing in Aligned in 2018, saw the company expand from two sites to 50 in just seven years. A Macquarie executive described the growth as “representative of our approach to supporting rapid, scalable infrastructure that delivers real impact.” Earlier this year, Aligned raised over $12 billion in combined equity and debt, including roughly $5 billion in new equity financing, to fund aggressive expansion. The company previously strengthened its Latin American presence by acquiring ODATA in 2023, integrating data centers across Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

Aligned’s customer base includes hyperscale cloud operators, enterprise firms, and service providers such as Nutanix and Datto. Its competitors—Equinix, Digital Realty Trust, CyrusOne, and Vantage Data Centers—have traditionally dominated the data infrastructure market, though few have reached comparable power capacity or growth velocity.

The consortium’s composition extends beyond the headline partners. Additional investors include sovereign and institutional funds such as the Kuwait Investment Authority, Singapore’s Temasek, and UAE-backed MGX. Energy and technology firms like Cisco, GE Vernova, and NextEra Energy have also joined the partnership, focusing on scalable power generation, grid management, and sustainability integration across data center operations.

Industry analysts view the deal as a signal that AI compute capacity has become the new oilfield of the digital economy. Power availability, cooling efficiency, and data throughput now represent the most critical resources for AI advancement, rivaling software and model development in strategic importance. One industry voice described the collaboration as proof of “the strength of the AI ecosystem” converging between technology, finance, and infrastructure.

The $40 billion transaction marks one of the largest ever in the global data center sector, positioning AIP’s assets at valuations up to 160 percent higher than comparable publicly listed Bitcoin miners, according to The Block’s analysis. The contrast highlights how AI-linked infrastructure commands a steep premium relative to crypto or conventional cloud providers.

Market observers estimate that the world’s major technology companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—may collectively invest over $400 billion in AI infrastructure during this cycle. OpenAI alone is reportedly negotiating multi-gigawatt compute deals that could eventually total 26 GW, equivalent to the power required to supply several million homes. These figures illustrate the growing competition to secure the underlying resources—energy, chips, and land—that fuel machine learning and generative AI operations.

The AIP acquisition of Aligned Data Centers represents more than a corporate merger; it is an infrastructural land grab redefining how AI value chains are constructed. For the first time, Wall Street capital, hyperscale cloud infrastructure, and semiconductor manufacturing are converging within a single ownership layer, suggesting that future innovation in artificial intelligence will be built not just in code, but in concrete, copper, and kilowatts.

This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.