A consortium of heavyweight investors is acquiring Aligned Data Centers in a deal valued at approximately $40 billion, making it the largest transaction in digital infrastructure history. The group plans to invest $5 billion specifically to accelerate growth at the company, which operates over 50 data center campuses with more than 5 gigawatts of operational and planned power capacity.

The buyers: the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). They’re purchasing Aligned from Macquarie Asset Management, with the deal expected to close in the first half of 2026 pending regulatory approvals.

The deal behind the deal

Aligned Data Centers, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Dallas, isn’t your average server farm operator. The company specializes in adaptive data center designs with patented cooling technologies built specifically for high-density AI and hyperscale computing workloads.

AIP, which was formed in September 2024, has set a target of raising $30 billion in equity specifically for AI-centric infrastructure investments. Its members include Microsoft and NVIDIA.

BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink, who also chairs AIP, has emphasized the investment’s role in powering the future of AI infrastructure.

Aligned had already been on an aggressive growth trajectory before this acquisition. In January 2025, the company secured a $12 billion capital raise that included $5 billion in equity and over $7 billion in debt. The company is also building Project Caprock, a new $5 billion campus in Texas slated for completion in the first quarter of 2027.

Why crypto investors should care about data centers

Decentralized computing networks like Render, Akash, and io.net are positioning themselves as alternatives to centralized data center providers. Aligned’s 5 gigawatts of capacity is a staggering amount of electricity — enough to power roughly 3.8 million homes. As AI facilities compete with Bitcoin mining operations for power purchase agreements and grid access, miners in key markets like Texas (where Project Caprock is being built) may face increased pressure on energy costs.

What to watch from here

The deal’s expected closing in the first half of 2026 gives regulators several months to review what is, by any measure, a massive concentration of AI infrastructure ownership. Antitrust scrutiny seems inevitable when the buyer group includes the company building the chips (NVIDIA), the company running the cloud platforms (Microsoft), and the world’s largest asset manager (BlackRock).

The buildout of multiple gigawatt-scale data center campuses across the US and Latin America will strain power grids and potentially redirect renewable energy capacity away from other uses, including Bitcoin mining. Texas, already the largest hub for US Bitcoin mining, is about to become an even more contested battleground for cheap electricity.