Miner Shares Soar While BlackRock, Nvidia, and Microsoft Lead $40B Bet on AI Data Centers

BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft Lead $40B AI Data Center Acquisition

The Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), a consortium including BlackRock, Nvidia, xAI, and Microsoft, will acquire Aligned Data Centers in a $40 billion deal, the companies announced Wednesday. This marks the group’s first transaction as it begins building a massive AI infrastructure portfolio.

AIP plans to deploy $30 billion in equity initially, with total investment—including debt—potentially reaching $100 billion. The move highlights the growing importance of data center capacity for AI workloads.

Aligned operates 50 campuses across the U.S. and Latin America, serving hyperscalers, enterprises, and emerging cloud providers, with over 5 gigawatts of operating and planned capacity, including facilities still under construction.

The acquisition follows other AI infrastructure deals, including Nebius Group’s $17.4 billion GPU supply agreement with Microsoft and CoreWeave’s $6.3 billion Nvidia server reservation.

The Aligned deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026. Bitcoin mining firms pivoting toward AI infrastructure—including Hut 8 Corp (HUT), IREN (IREN), Bitfarms (BITF), and CleanSpark (CLSK)—rose 3%–6% in early trading.