- Consortium including BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft acquires Aligned
- Deal values global AI infrastructure push, expands data centre capacity
What happened: Major acquisition accelerates AI infrastructure expansion
A consortium led by BlackRock, together with Nvidia, Microsoft and the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), announced the acquisition of Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie for roughly US $40 billion. Aligned operates more than 50 data centres across the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, with capacity exceeding 5 gigawatts. Macquarie had been a principal stakeholder in Aligned since 2018 and increased its position in 2020.
The acquiring group includes sovereign tech fund MGX and the joint venture AIP, a partnership formed in 2024 that comprises MGX, Nvidia, and Microsoft. AIP aims to mobilise US $30 billion in direct investment and leverage debt to total US $100 billion in deployment capacity. The parties have not yet disclosed how ownership shares in Aligned will be split post-transaction. The takeover is slated for completion in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approvals.
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Why it’s important
This transaction underscores the scale of demand for AI infrastructure—spanning compute, storage, networking and data centre capacity. As companies race to support generative AI and high-throughput workloads, existing infrastructure must scale rapidly. The acquisition gives the consortium instant access to wide geographic reach and energy capacity, accelerating deployment timelines.
Moreover, integrating Aligned with the technical strength of Nvidia and Microsoft may yield synergies in hardware, optimization algorithms, and operational efficiency. The ownership by BlackRock and MGX reflects growing investor appetite for long-duration, infrastructure-style bets in tech. For cloud providers, content platforms, and enterprises, more robust backbone capacity means better performance, reduced latency and improved resilience—especially across the Americas and Latin America.
