MADRID, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Blackstone, the

world's largest alternative asset manager, plans to invest 7.5

billion euros ($8.2 billion) to develop data centres in Spain's

Aragon, boosting the region's growing status as a major cloud

computing hub in Europe.

The U.S. private equity fund will follow tech giants such as

Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) in choosing the regional

capital Zaragoza in northeastern Spain, where so far 19 data

centres projects have been submitted to local authorities for

approval, a spokesperson for the Aragon's regional government

said on Tuesday.

Blackstone will develop the buildings by installing cooling

machines and cable connections with the aim of leasing them to

companies who will install computer servers.

A spokesperson for Blackstone confirmed the planned

investment.

The Aragon regional government said in June that tech giant

Microsoft ( MSFT ) was planning a 6.69-billion-euro investment in data

centres in the region and Amazon's ( AMZN ) cloud computing unit AWS said

in May it would invest 15.7 billion euros to build its own data

centres there.

Amazon ( AMZN ) said it would power its data centres with renewable

energy. The Aragon region has a large wind power capacity.

($1 = 0.9170 euros)