NEW YORK CITY, Oct 15 — An investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft, and Nvidia is buying one of the world's biggest data centre operators with nearly 80 sites in a deal worth US$40 billion (RM169.2 billion) to secure coveted computing capacity for artificial intelligence (AI).
The purchase of the United States (US)-based Aligned Data Centres from Australian Macquarie Asset Management on Wednesday is the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed last year, which also includes Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX and Elon Musk's startup xAI among its backers.
"With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI," said BlackRock chief executive officer (CEO) Larry Fink, who also serves as the chairman of the AI Infrastructure Partnership.
Deals to snap up chips and infrastructure
The acquisition is the latest in a series of big-ticket deals from Big Tech and Silicon Valley startups that the AI boom has fueled.
Morgan Stanley has estimated that major tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave, are on track to spend US$400 billion (RM1.69 trillion) on AI infrastructure this year.
OpenAI, the startup at the heart of the AI boom, struck deals in recent weeks with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom that may cost over US$1 trillion (RM4.23 trillion) to secure about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, enough to power roughly 20 million US homes.
Meta Platforms is building several multi-gigawatt AI data centres, including one called Prometheus, due to come online in 2026, and another, Hyperion, which can scale up to 5 gigawatts.
Privately held Aligned Data Centres currently has over five gigawatts of operational and planned capacity across 50 campuses in the US and Latin America.
Nvidia shareholder Equity Armor Investments' portfolio manager Joe Tigay said the acquisition highlights the growing value of data centre assets for investors.
"They are looking at rapid expansion to meet AI demand and optimise for it," he said.
Spending surge as interest booms
Aligned has been a big winner of the AI infrastructure spending boom, raising US$12 billion (RM50.78 billion) in equity and debt earlier this year in one of the largest private capital injections into a data centre company.
Shares of its publicly listed rivals, such as Applied Digital, have soared more than fourfold this year. Applied Digital shares jumped five per cent on Wednesday.
The investment group buying Aligned also includes Kuwait Investment Authority and Singapore state-owned investor Temasek as anchor investors. It has an initial target of deploying US$30 billion (RM126.9 billion) of equity capital, with the potential to reach US$100 billion, including debt.
It has not disclosed how much each partner has contributed to the tie-up or the equity value of Wednesday's deal.
Nvidia and Aligned declined to comment, while the investors did not immediately respond to requests seeking more details on the deal.
Aligned will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas, under CEO Andrew Schaap, the investor group said in its statement, when the deal closes in the first half of 2026.
