A consortium led by BlackRock Infrastructure and Abu Dhabi's MGX closed the $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers on Tuesday and immediately committed an additional $5 billion in growth capital. The transaction moves one of North America's largest hyperscale data center platforms into the hands of a permanent-capital vehicle backed by sovereign wealth.
Aligned operates 29 facilities across 11 U.S. markets, purpose-built for hyperscale tenants demanding multi-megawatt capacity and sub-10-millisecond latency to cloud availability zones. The platform was majority-owned by TA Associates and Aligned's management before the sale. The consortium structure splits economics between BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners fund and MGX, the $100 billion tech-focused vehicle launched by Abu Dhabi in March 2024. The $5 billion growth capital commitment is contractually earmarked for new site acquisition and power procurement, not operating expenses.
The structure matters because it separates Aligned from the merchant-build model that has compressed margins across the sector. Most U.S. data center developers lease sites to tenants under 15-year triple-net arrangements, then refinance at the asset level. Aligned will now build to spec with equity checks already cleared, eliminating construction-phase financing risk and allowing the platform to underprice levered competitors on long-duration hyperscale deals. MGX's participation signals a broader Gulf strategy: Abu Dhabi is paying to own the physical layer beneath AI compute, not just the chips. The $40 billion enterprise value implies Aligned traded at roughly 22x trailing EBITDA, a premium to the 18x sector median, justified by its contracted occupancy rate above 91% and weighted-average lease term of 12.7 years.
BlackRock is running the same trade it ran in utilities: acquire the infrastructure, lock in the offtake, let scarcity do the work. U.S. power grid constraints mean new hyperscale capacity in Virginia, Phoenix, and Dallas requires 18-24 months of utility coordination before energization. Aligned already holds interconnection agreements for 1.2 gigawatts of future capacity across its existing sites. The $5 billion equity buffer ensures the platform can move on those agreements without syndication delays. For allocators, this is confirmation that data center assets with contracted power and fiber are now priced as regulated-utility proxies, not real estate.
Operators should track Aligned's next two site announcements, expected in Virginia and Arizona within 90 days per management commentary. BlackRock will likely fold the platform into its Global Infrastructure V fund, which is targeting a Q2 2025 first close at $25 billion. MGX has publicly stated its intent to deploy $15 billion into AI-enabling infrastructure by year-end 2025, meaning additional bolt-on acquisitions for Aligned are probable. Power procurement announcements from Dominion Energy and APS will clarify whether the consortium is pre-buying capacity or building its own substations.
The Dallas headquarters stays intact. The consortium retained Aligned's full executive team, including CEO Andrew Schaap, who spent 14 years at Digital Realty before joining in 2015. That continuity, combined with sovereign backing and a growth check already wired, makes Aligned the first hyperscale platform immune to the refinancing cycle that begins pressuring the sector in late 2025.