Sou Hu Cai Jing·2025-10-16 00:39Core Insights - BlackRock and NVIDIA announced a $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, marking one of the largest mergers of the year [1][2] - The acquisition targets the growing demand for AI infrastructure as tech giants accelerate the construction of AI-specific data centers [1][2] Group 1: Acquisition Details - The acquisition is led by BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), with NVIDIA as a strategic partner and Mubadala's MGX joining the consortium [1][2] - Aligned Data Centers operates 50 campuses and 78 data centers across the U.S. and South America, serving major clients like Microsoft and Amazon [1] Group 2: Financial Background - Aligned recently completed over $12 billion in equity and debt financing, indicating its expanding power capacity critical for AI model training [2] - The deal values Aligned at $40 billion, with the transaction expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval [2] Group 3: Future Plans - Post-acquisition, Aligned will be rebranded as "GIP-Aligned AI Infrastructure" and will initiate a global expansion plan focusing on emerging markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East [2] - NVIDIA plans to deploy its latest Blackwell architecture GPUs in Aligned's data centers to provide dedicated computing services for clients like OpenAI and Anthropic [2]