Microsoft, Nvidia, and others inject $40B into AI bubble with massive datacenter deal
(2025/10/15)
- Reference: 1760555375
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/10/15/microsoft_nvidia_ai_datacenter_deal/
- Source link:
The AI bubble just keeps getting bigger. A consortium featuring BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia, xAI, and MGX is buying Aligned Data Centers in a deal valuing the operator at around $40 billion, in what is reportedly the biggest datacenter acquisition to date.
US-based Aligned Data Centers, currently owned by Macquarie Asset Management, is being [1]sold to a consortium led through the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) - a group formed last year by BlackRock, its Global Infrastructure Partners unit, Abu Dhabi's state-backed MGX, and Microsoft, later joined by Nvidia, Elon Musk's xAI, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Singapore's Temasek.
ADC's portfolio includes 50 datacenters in North and South America amounting to 5 GW of capacity - or at least that's what it'll have once all of its planned facilities are up and running, [2]according to Macquarie. The company said, in its press release announcing the acquisition, that ADC has grown from just two datacenters in the Dallas and Phoenix markets to 50 in only seven years under Macquarie's management.
[3]
Now it'll be up to the AIP consortium to take that even further in the name of fueling the expansion of AI for its flagship tech firms, and it has some scaling to do.
[4]
[5]
According to AIP's own press release on the deal, the Partnership's goal is to "accelerate investment in next-generation AI infrastructure and advance the infrastructure and innovation needed to power the future of AI," and it intends to do so by mobilizing $30 billion in equity from investors, "with the potential to reach $100 billion including debt financing." The deal is AIP's first investment, the company noted.
This is just the latest in a string of high-profile deals involving AI firms snatching up computing resources, and while it may be the largest to date, it's just another indication that companies are willing to go into massive debt to fuel the AI bubble.
[6]
Investment bank Goldman Sachs recently [7]predicted that datacenter capacity is likely to surge by 50 percent in the next two years, but it tempered that growth with a note that the "frenzied atmosphere" around AI investment of late is seeing companies deploy capital in a defensive manner in a bid to prevent being left behind.
[8]Bank of England smells hint of dotcom bubble 2.0 in AI froth
[9]$500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project struggles to get off the drawing board
[10]Big money is nervous about AI hype, but not ready to call it a bubble
[11]Datacenter market offers us captive customer base, say investors
OpenAI and its [12]Stargate initiative have banked big on borrowing to fuel its growth ambitions, signing a $300 billion cloud infrastructure deal with Oracle last month that analysts [13]predict will require Oracle to go $100 billion into debt in order to support.
Elon Musk himself (through xAI), an investor in AIP, heaped scorn on OpenAI for its debt dealings, [14]claiming shortly after OpenAI announced Stargate that none of the firms involved actually had the money they were planning to spend on the program, instead creating a revolving door of debt that sees AI investors simply trade promissory notes to fuel their ambitions.
"With AIP, MGX, and GIP's global reach, extensive resources, and deep expertise across AI, energy, and finance, we are poised to scale faster, innovate further, and redefine what's possible in sustainable data center infrastructure," ADC CEO Andrew Schaap said of the deal.
Let's hope for their sake the bubble doesn't burst before some of those bills come due. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.global-infra.com/news/ai-infrastructure-partnership-aip-mgx-and-blackrocks-global-infrastructure-partners-gip-to-acquire-all-equity-in-aligned-data-centers/
[2] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251015016099/en/Macquarie-Asset-Management-to-Lead-Sale-of-Aligned-Data-Centers-at-an-Enterprise-Value-of-%24US40-Billion
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/02/goldman_sachs_ai_datacenters/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/08/boe_dotcom_bubble_ai/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/08/stargate_launch_delays/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/03/ai_bubble_watch_markets/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/datacenter_market_captive_audience/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/24/openai_oracle_softbank_datacenters/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/29/oracle_ai_debt/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/23/musk_altman_stargate_ai/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
US-based Aligned Data Centers, currently owned by Macquarie Asset Management, is being [1]sold to a consortium led through the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) - a group formed last year by BlackRock, its Global Infrastructure Partners unit, Abu Dhabi's state-backed MGX, and Microsoft, later joined by Nvidia, Elon Musk's xAI, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Singapore's Temasek.
ADC's portfolio includes 50 datacenters in North and South America amounting to 5 GW of capacity - or at least that's what it'll have once all of its planned facilities are up and running, [2]according to Macquarie. The company said, in its press release announcing the acquisition, that ADC has grown from just two datacenters in the Dallas and Phoenix markets to 50 in only seven years under Macquarie's management.
[3]
Now it'll be up to the AIP consortium to take that even further in the name of fueling the expansion of AI for its flagship tech firms, and it has some scaling to do.
[4]
[5]
According to AIP's own press release on the deal, the Partnership's goal is to "accelerate investment in next-generation AI infrastructure and advance the infrastructure and innovation needed to power the future of AI," and it intends to do so by mobilizing $30 billion in equity from investors, "with the potential to reach $100 billion including debt financing." The deal is AIP's first investment, the company noted.
This is just the latest in a string of high-profile deals involving AI firms snatching up computing resources, and while it may be the largest to date, it's just another indication that companies are willing to go into massive debt to fuel the AI bubble.
[6]
Investment bank Goldman Sachs recently [7]predicted that datacenter capacity is likely to surge by 50 percent in the next two years, but it tempered that growth with a note that the "frenzied atmosphere" around AI investment of late is seeing companies deploy capital in a defensive manner in a bid to prevent being left behind.
[8]Bank of England smells hint of dotcom bubble 2.0 in AI froth
[9]$500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project struggles to get off the drawing board
[10]Big money is nervous about AI hype, but not ready to call it a bubble
[11]Datacenter market offers us captive customer base, say investors
OpenAI and its [12]Stargate initiative have banked big on borrowing to fuel its growth ambitions, signing a $300 billion cloud infrastructure deal with Oracle last month that analysts [13]predict will require Oracle to go $100 billion into debt in order to support.
Elon Musk himself (through xAI), an investor in AIP, heaped scorn on OpenAI for its debt dealings, [14]claiming shortly after OpenAI announced Stargate that none of the firms involved actually had the money they were planning to spend on the program, instead creating a revolving door of debt that sees AI investors simply trade promissory notes to fuel their ambitions.
"With AIP, MGX, and GIP's global reach, extensive resources, and deep expertise across AI, energy, and finance, we are poised to scale faster, innovate further, and redefine what's possible in sustainable data center infrastructure," ADC CEO Andrew Schaap said of the deal.
Let's hope for their sake the bubble doesn't burst before some of those bills come due. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.global-infra.com/news/ai-infrastructure-partnership-aip-mgx-and-blackrocks-global-infrastructure-partners-gip-to-acquire-all-equity-in-aligned-data-centers/
[2] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251015016099/en/Macquarie-Asset-Management-to-Lead-Sale-of-Aligned-Data-Centers-at-an-Enterprise-Value-of-%24US40-Billion
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aPAZdMSfIPi2ffOCDIW8-wAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/02/goldman_sachs_ai_datacenters/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/08/boe_dotcom_bubble_ai/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/08/stargate_launch_delays/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/03/ai_bubble_watch_markets/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/datacenter_market_captive_audience/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/24/openai_oracle_softbank_datacenters/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/29/oracle_ai_debt/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/23/musk_altman_stargate_ai/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Michael Hoffmann
I'm not blindly saying Ed Zitron is gospel, but his recent calculations and numbers pretty much indicated that against the power requirements projected for the AI spruikers precious next gen, never mind "AGI", 50 billion is a drop in the bucket!
They don't need merely new data centres, they need entire new power plants. Or the rest of us WILL be sitting in the dark (and then what? AI agents jacking each other off, while us mere mortals re-enact Lord of the Flies?)
Properly zoned and permitted land
With plenty of electrical capacity either already present or in progress is becoming a super premium asset. It takes too long to start from scratch, so AI players have been looking for in-progress sites from third parties who are happy to sell at wildly inflated prices.
I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see teardowns where an old datacenter complex is knocked down to make room for a new one. The power demands for AI are so much higher and water cooling is basically a requirement so it is probably easier to knock down and rebuild than to retrofit.