In a gigantic $40 billion deal, a consortium of global investors — including Nvidia, Microsoft, BlackRock, and Elon Musk’s xAI — has agreed to acquire Texas-based Aligned Data Centers. The deal, confirmed Wednesday, marks a landmark moment in the global data infrastructure market and represents the first major investment by the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), a fund created last year to channel capital into large-scale data and energy assets underpinning the AI economy. The consortium plans to allocate its initial equity commitments toward expanding Aligned’s capacity in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile.
Initial founding members included BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth-backed entity MGX. Since its inception, the partnership has expanded to include Singapore’s Temasek, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Elon Musk’s xAI, positioning the AIP as an entity focused on digital infrastructure. According to a joint statement released on Wednesday, the consortium will acquire 100% of Aligned’s equity from its current owner, Macquarie Asset Management. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of the coming year.
Aligned Data Centers, currently owned by Macquarie Asset Management, designs, builds, and operates hyperscale data centers and energy-efficient campuses across North and South America. It comes with an aggregate of over 5 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity — enough to power several million homes. Aligned’s facilities are located in major cloud and network hubs, including Northern Virginia, Dallas, Chicago, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City, as well as in Latin American growth markets such as São Paulo, Querétaro, and Santiago.
“This transaction underscores Macquarie Asset Management’s ability to consistently identify key thematics early and find opportunities that create value for our clients and partners,” Ben Way, Head of Macquarie Asset Management, commented on the matter. “The scaling of Aligned Data Centers from two locations to 50 in seven years is representative of our approach to working with great companies and teams to support their rapid growth and deliver positive impact.”
As for AIP, it was established in response to what major investors describe as a structural shortage of compute infrastructure — the physical backbone required to support generative AI models, machine learning workloads, and cloud computing services. The partnership combines capital from sovereign wealth funds, private equity, and leading tech companies with the operational expertise of data center specialists and energy providers. In addition to financial investors, industrial players such as Cisco Systems, GE Vernova, and NextEra Energy are reportedly advising or supplying critical tech to AIP projects, including power distribution, cooling, and grid integration systems.
The $40 billion acquisition comes amid an unprecedented wave of investment in computing capacity by major tech firms. Nvidia, which dominates the market for AI accelerators, has seen its hardware supply become the bottleneck of global AI expansion, and is now investing directly in data center projects alongside partners to secure long-term access to power and space. Last month, OpenAI and Nvidia announced a $100 billion plan to build up to 10 gigawatts of data center capacity dedicated to training next-generation models. In parallel, OpenAI entered into a $6 billion deal with AMD for AI chip supply, giving it an option to acquire up to a 10% equity stake in the chipmaker.
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