BlackRock, Nvidia-backed group strikes $40 billion AI data center deal

An investor group, including BlackRock (BLK) and Nvidia (NVDA), will buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies said on Wednesday, as AI infrastructure expansion powers on.

Nvidia stock rose 1% in Wednesday trading.

The deal underscores an intensifying race to expand the costly, supply-constrained infrastructure required to develop artificial intelligence technology, as companies rush to build sophisticated AI models.

The acquisition follows a slew of mega-deals focused on securing coveted compute capacity. ChatGPT creator OpenAI has in recent weeks unveiled agreements totaling about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, enough to power roughly 20 million U.S. homes.

The investment consortium, dubbed the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), has an initial target of deploying $30 billion of equity capital, with the potential of reaching $100 billion, including debt.

This is AIP's first investment, and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026.