Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an infrastructure investment fund owned by asset management giant BlackRock (BLK), is edging closer in its bid to acquire Texas-based Aligned Data Center in a deal that could value the latter at approximately $40 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing insider sources. BlackRock’s stock rose marginally on Friday morning during pre-market trading.
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Aligned Data Centre, which is backed by Australian asset manager Macquarie (MQBKY), designs and builds data centers for AI workloads. It also operates across the U.S. and North and South America, including in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil.
GIP Bets on AI Boom
GIP’s move comes as companies worldwide continue to invest heavily in AI infrastructure, triggering warnings of a potential AI bubble. In recent weeks, Oracle (ORCL) signed a massive $300 billion cloud contract with OpenAI. Also, Meta (META) agreed to a $20 billion cloud computing deal with Oracle, and shook hands with CoreWeave (CRWV) on a separate $14 billion deal.
The deal marks GIP’s latest effort to capitalize on the AI hype to expand its portfolio, even as the investment fund is also looking to take over utility giant AES Corp. (AES) in a $38 billion deal. AES generates and distributes electricity and is well-positioned to profit from the surge in power demand, driven by massive investments in data center operations by U.S. tech companies.
Meanwhile, GIP’s ongoing bid for Aligned Data Centre could still fail, the insiders have said, as details are still provisional. Sovereign wealth fund Mubadala’s AI investment subsidiary MGX is also involved in the deal as an independent investor.
Is BlackRock a Good Stock to Invest in?
On Wall Street, BlackRock’s shares currently boast a Strong Buy consensus recommendation, as seen on TipRanks. This is based on 12 Buys and one Hold assigned by Wall Street analysts over the past three months.
The average BLK price target of $1,223.42 suggests a 5.42% growth potential from the current level.
