Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust filed for a $1.75 billion US initial public offering Thursday, the firm's seventh infrastructure vehicle since 2021 and its first focused entirely on AI-compute real estate. The REIT priced at the top of guidance. No retail exposure. The trust holds 22 hyperscale data centers across 11 North American markets, with weighted average lease terms of 9.2 years and occupancy at 94%.
The offering comes eight months after Blackstone's private infrastructure fund acquired a $7.1 billion portfolio of mid-Atlantic data halls from QTS Realty Trust. That deal closed in September. Digital Infrastructure Trust is carved from that acquisition plus three follow-on purchases in Phoenix, Northern Virginia, and suburban Dallas. The portfolio generates $340 million in trailing annual NOI. Blackstone is retaining a 38% equity stake post-IPO and will collect a 1.25% annual management fee on gross asset value, standard for the firm's listed vehicles.
This is not speculative construction. The trust owns stabilized assets with investment-grade anchor tenants already online. 68% of revenue comes from three hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and an unnamed cloud provider Blackstone identifies only as a top-five global platform. Lease escalators average 3.1% annually, and 81% of contracts include power cost pass-throughs indexed to local utility rates. The trust's Phoenix facility signed a 12-year extension with AWS in October at rental rates 22% above the expiring lease. Northern Virginia's Ashburn campus is 11 megawatts reserved, with Microsoft pre-committed to expansion rights through 2026.
The IPO structure matters. Blackstone is offering this as a perpetual-life REIT, not a finite-term fund, which signals the firm expects durable cash yields in the low teens and minimal need for liquidity gates. The trust will pay a 6.8% initial dividend yield based on the IPO price, with distributions quarterly. That yield sits 240 basis points above the FTSE Nareit Data Center Index and 180 basis points over Digital Realty Trust, the sector's largest public comp. Blackstone is pricing in a scarcity premium for hyperscale-dedicated portfolios with no legacy colocation exposure.
Allocators should watch three follow-on events. First, whether Blackstone files for a second tranche by March—the firm typically sizes these vehicles at $3-4 billion total and seeds them with initial offerings near $2 billion. Second, AWS and Microsoft have both flagged $50+ billion in combined data center capex through 2025; if either announces lease commitments in the trust's existing markets, NOI could step up 12-15% without new acquisitions. Third, the trust's amended filings will disclose its cost of debt. Blackstone's infrastructure funds have been borrowing at SOFR plus 165 basis points on five-year notes; anything tighter suggests the firm sees long-term rate stability.
The offering prices February 6. Blackstone has not missed an infrastructure IPO pricing window since 2019.