Aligned, currently owned by Macquarie Asset Management, designs and operates large-scale data campuses across North and South America. The acquisition will see MGX (Abu Dhabi), BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, and other members of the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) jointly purchase 100% of the company’s equity, according to a statement released Wednesday.
Formed in September 2024, AIP was established by BlackRock, MGX, Microsoft, and Nvidia to drive global investment in AI-related infrastructure. Since then, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Temasek, and xAI have joined as additional members.
The Aligned acquisition marks AIP’s first major investment, and a significant move toward its goal of deploying $30 billion in equity capital to build the backbone of the AI economy.
“With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI, while offering our clients attractive opportunities to participate in its growth,” said Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock and Chairman of AIP, in a statement.
The deal underscores the intensifying race among global technology companies to secure data center capacity and computing power needed for artificial intelligence development. Firms like OpenAI, Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Oracle have been aggressively expanding their data infrastructure portfolios amid soaring demand for AI model training and deployment.
Data centers are crucial to this ecosystem, hosting the servers and advanced chips that handle the massive computational workloads behind generative AI systems. Aligned currently operates 50 campuses with more than 5 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity, making it one of the most strategically positioned players in the sector.
Industry analysts say the acquisition signals a new era of AI infrastructure consolidation, where capital-intensive partnerships are becoming essential to meet the extraordinary power and computing needs of the technology.
The transaction, which remains subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions, is expected to close by late 2026.