BlackRock consortium closes $40B Aligned Data Centers deal, commits $5B growth capital

A consortium led by BlackRock and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund MGX closed its $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers on Tuesday and immediately committed an additional $5 billion in growth capital. The Dallas-based operator now holds the largest single infrastructure commitment written for hyperscale data-center capacity since mid-2025.

The deal values Aligned at roughly 12.8x trailing EBITDA based on disclosed financials from Q4 2025, a 22% premium to the sector median multiple of 10.5x recorded in North American data-center M&A over the prior eighteen months. The $5 billion growth commitment—disclosed separately from the acquisition consideration—targets new capacity builds across five markets where Aligned already holds land and power allocations. No construction timeline was provided, but two people familiar with the matter said first steel is expected in Phoenix and Northern Virginia by Q1 2027.

The transaction matters for three reasons. First, it establishes a new valuation ceiling for contracted hyperscale capacity at a moment when power constraints have made pre-permitted sites worth more than operating revenue. Aligned operates 1.4 gigawatts of IT load capacity across 14 campuses, with 87% leased to investment-grade hyperscalers under take-or-pay contracts averaging 11.2 years remaining. Second, the $5 billion growth capital isolates expansion risk in a vehicle separate from the base acquisition, which suggests the consortium views existing assets as cash-yielding infrastructure and new builds as option value on AI compute demand that may or may not materialize at forecast density. Third, MGX's participation—its largest disclosed U.S. infrastructure commitment since formation in Q2 2024—signals Gulf capital is moving from equity co-investment in single projects to full platform ownership in sectors where U.S. pension allocators have slowed.

The capital structure has not been disclosed, but two financing sources said the consortium used roughly $18 billion in equity and $22 billion in senior secured debt arranged by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The debt carries a blended cost of 5.6%, which pencils to a levered equity return in the low teens if Aligned holds occupancy above 82% and power costs remain flat through 2028. That return profile is tight for BlackRock's Infrastructure Partners IV fund, which typically underwrites gross returns of 16%-19% for core-plus strategies, but the deal allows the firm to deploy nearly $12 billion of dry powder in a single transaction at a moment when competition for hyperscale assets has made billion-dollar checks difficult to place at target returns.

Operators and allocators should watch three variables over the next nine months. First, whether Aligned announces anchor tenants for the $5 billion growth pipeline by year-end, which would indicate the consortium has pre-sold capacity and de-risked construction. Second, power procurement updates in Phoenix and Northern Virginia, where grid interconnection queues have lengthened and utility capital plans remain unconfirmed for AI-scale loads. Third, whether BlackRock syndicates minority stakes to pension or insurance capital, which would provide a valuation mark and suggest the firm views the platform as hold-to-maturity infrastructure rather than a three-to-five-year trade.

The consortium now controls the second-largest portfolio of hyperscale data-center capacity in North America by IT load, trailing only Digital Realty's 2.1 GW of owned and managed sites. The difference: Aligned's customer concentration sits at 63% with its top three tenants, compared to 41% at Digital Realty, which means cash flow stability depends on three renewal decisions over the next decade rather than a diversified book.