- The deal would see BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners take a stake in ACS’s data‑centre business, with significant equity and debt contributions.
- The timing reflects the soaring demand for AI and cloud‑driven infrastructure as data‑centre valuations reach record levels.
What happened: ACS is set to partner with BlackRock to expand its data‑centre business
ACS, the Spanish construction and infrastructure services giant, is close to signing a deal with BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Specifically, GIP would invest €5 billion in equity and €18 billion in debt into ACS’s Digital and Energy unit. Moreover, the unit focuses on data‑centre development and energy‑transition assets. Therefore, this deal values the unit at roughly €23 billion. Previously, ACS had targeted a valuation of €3 billion to €5 billion by 2030. The negotiations are reportedly near completion, according to Spanish newspaper Expansion. Meanwhile, ACS plans to provide an update on its data‑centre strategy at its upcoming investor day.
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Why it’s important
The potential deal marks a significant inflection point in the data‑centre sector and highlights how infrastructure firms are moving beyond traditional roles into the digital‑compute era. For ACS, the partnership offers a pathway to monetise its infrastructure engineering capability and pivot into high‑growth digital asset classes. For BlackRock and GIP, it provides access to high‑growth demand driven by cloud providers, AI operators and hyperscale data‑centre users, all seeking global capacity and scale. The size of the deal underscores how data‑centre real‑estate and compute infrastructure are now viewed as strategic assets as the world shifts from connectivity to compute.
That said, the deal comes with challenges: the debt burden is sizeable, energy‑intensive infrastructure is under environmental and regulatory scrutiny, and the path from signed agreement to operational sites remains long. If the partnership succeeds, it may signal a new wave of infrastructure deals anchoring data‑centres as the next major asset class in global finance and tech.
