Blog

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Global Infrastructure Partners is in advanced talks to buy Texas-based Aligned Data Centres from Macquarie, in what would be the latest data centre deal fuelled by the AI investment boom.

The deal, which could be valued at nearly $40bn according to two people familiar with the matter, could be announced as soon as next week, one of the people added.

MGX, an AI investment company founded by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, is also involved in the talks, according to one of the people, and may invest independently as part of the transaction.

BlackRock’s GIP also owns stakes in London’s Gatwick airport and large pipeline networks in the US and Middle East.

The agreement would be the latest data centre deal to be agreed this year as companies look to capitalise on a wave of investment generated by the AI spending boom.

Aligned, which operates across the US, Canada and South America, has 48 campuses and 78 data centres under management and future development.

In January, the company raised $5bn in primary equity from funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management in addition to more than $7bn in debt from lenders to “fund accelerated platform expansion and ongoing innovation”.

Macquarie, GIP and MGX all declined to comment.

Data centres have become popular choices for investors from private equity groups to pension funds, lured by the promise of stable revenues from long-term contracts. 

At the same time, both cloud providers and corporates are racing to capitalise on the opportunity, leading to the surge in deals. 

At $40bn, the Aligned agreement would be one of the five largest transactions agreed this year, according to data from Bloomberg, which first reported the talks.

There have been 162 data centre-oriented M&A deals that have closed this year globally, worth more than $46bn, according to Synergy Research Group. Another 45 deals worth about $35bn have been agreed but not yet closed. 

Last year, 287 deals closed worth more than $77bn, eclipsing all previous years, according to Synergy.