Oct 15 (Reuters) - An investment consortium that

includes BlackRock ( BLK ), Nvidia ( NVDA ), xAI and Microsoft ( MSFT )

will acquire Aligned Data Centers in a deal worth $40

billion, the companies said on Wednesday.

The deal underscores an intensifying race to expand the

costly, supply-constrained infrastructure required to power

artificial intelligence technology, as companies rush to build

the most sophisticated AI models.

The acquisition follows a slew of mega-deals focused on

securing coveted compute capacity. ChatGPT creator OpenAI has in

recent weeks unveiled agreements totaling about 26 gigawatts of

computing capacity, enough to power roughly 20 million U.S.

homes.

The investment consortium, dubbed the Artificial

Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), has an initial

target of deploying $30 billion of equity capital, with the

potential of reaching $100 billion, including debt.

This is AIP's first investment. The transaction is expected

to close in the first half of 2026.

"With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further

our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the

future of AI, " said Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock ( BLK ) and chairman

of AIP.

AIP's anchor investors also include the Kuwait Investment

Authority and Singapore's state-owned investor Temasek.

Aligned designs, builds and operates data centers for the

hyperscalers, neocloud and enterprises.

Its portfolio includes 50 campuses and more than 5 gigawatts

of operational and planned capacity, including assets under

development, located across the U.S. and Latin America.

Aligned will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and will

be led by CEO Andrew Schaap.

OpenAI last week unveiled a 6-gigawatt AI chip supply deal

with AMD that includes an option to buy a stake in the

chipmaker, days after disclosing that Nvidia ( NVDA ) plans to invest up

to $100 billion in the startup and provide it with data center

systems with at least 10 gigawatts of capacity.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil

D'Silva)