BlackRock and MGX close $40B Aligned Data Centers buy

The AI Infrastructure Partnership, the BlackRock-led consortium that also includes Global Infrastructure Partners, MGX, Microsoft and Nvidia, has closed its acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, one of the largest single bets ever placed on the physical plant behind artificial intelligence. AIP and MGX bought all of the equity in Plano, Texas-based Aligned from funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management. The transaction values the company at roughly $40 billion, and the buyers committed a further $5 billion in growth capital to expand it.

Why it matters

This is a land-and-power story dressed as a finance story. Aligned runs 51 campuses with more than 6.4 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity, and the new money exists to add more. For developers, the signal is where that capital now hunts: large, contiguous, power-served sites in the markets utilities can actually feed. A platform this size does not chase listings. It pre-positions on land and interconnection years ahead, which reprices dirt in any county with spare transmission.

The numbers

At about $40 billion, the deal ranks among the largest private investments ever completed in digital infrastructure. The $5 billion follow-on is earmarked to lift capacity for AI workloads across the existing 51-campus footprint. AIP itself was formed in September 2024 by BlackRock, GIP, MGX, Microsoft and Nvidia, an investor lineup that pairs the capital with the tenants and the chips.

What’s next

Expect the growth capital to concentrate in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona and other markets with headroom on the grid, not in supply-constrained coastal metros. The check also raises the stakes on the fight we have tracked over who pays for the transmission these campuses require. Capital this patient can wait out a zoning board, but it cannot manufacture megawatts, so the binding constraint for the next site is power, not price. Track the beat on our national desk and in data centers.