MGX, the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), today successfully completed their previously announced acquisition of 100 per cent of the equity in Aligned Data Centers from private infrastructure funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management and its co-invest partners.
The transaction, which represents Aligned’s enterprise value of approximately US$40 billion, stands as one of the largest private investments made to date in digital infrastructure.
Aligned is one of the largest and fastest-growing data center developers globally, with a portfolio spanning 51 campuses and more than 6.4GW of operational and planned capacity. Aligned’s current deployments reflect the essential role digital infrastructure plays in American reindustrialisation and technological leadership, with assets concentrated in key Tier I digital gateway regions including Northern Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Ohio, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, as well as São Paulo, Querétaro and Santiago. The company is globally recognised for its patented cooling technologies that materially reduce water usage and enhance the energy efficiency of data center deployments for its customers and communities. Aligned’s Chief Executive Officer Andrew Schaap and the existing management team will continue to lead the company, which will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
The consortium’s partners provide Aligned with strengths spanning the entire advanced compute ecosystem and the digital and energy infrastructure that underpins it, combining strategic insight into the technologies defining the next era of AI; deep experience investing in, owning and operating complex infrastructure at scale; and a supportive partnership model and the long-term capital required for Aligned to scale its platform while maintaining its customer and community focus and operational independence.
With the consortium’s support, Aligned will continue delivering meaningful value to the communities in which the company operates by creating local jobs and investing in local workforce development, revitalising legacy sites, diversifying local tax bases, and enhancing grid resilience. It will also expand the company’s footprint to deliver cutting-edge infrastructure to support the complex digital requirements of a growing customer base, as well as innovate next-generation, sustainable digital infrastructure that meets high-density digital demands and serves as the backbone for US technological leadership.
AIP was established to mobilise long-term capital at scale and convene global technology leaders in support of next-generation AI infrastructure. The transaction is AIP’s first investment and an important step toward its initial target of mobilising and deploying US$30 billion of equity capital, with the potential to support up to US$100 billion of total investment, including debt. In connection with the closing, the consortium has also committed an additional US$5 billion of growth capital to fund Aligned's continued expansion and scale-up of AI-ready capacity.
