Investors chase AI capacity
The next phase of the AI infrastructure boom is being defined by record investment, strategic alliances, and the race for global compute capacity. In the United States, BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners is in advanced talks to acquire Aligned Data Centers in a deal reportedly worth $40 billion — one of the largest AI infrastructure transactions to date. Abu Dhabi’s MGX, backed by the Mubadala sovereign fund, is also involved, signaling how Gulf capital continues to shape the global AI ecosystem. Meanwhile, Groq is scaling fast to meet surging inference demand, planning more than a dozen new data centers after expanding across the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East this year. Its high-speed language processing chips are gaining traction in markets from India to Saudi Arabia. And in the compute arena, AMD and OpenAI have unveiled a long-term pact to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs starting in 2026 — one of the largest single hardware commitments ever announced. From Silicon Valley to Riyadh, capital, chips, and compute are converging to define the architecture of AI’s next chapter. More below!
Juan Pedro Tomas
Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
BlackRock nears $40B deal: BlackRock’s infrastructure arm is nearing a $40 billion deal for Aligned Data Centers, signaling investor confidence in AI infrastructure growth even as market observers warn of overheated valuations.
Groq accelerates AI buildout: AI chipmaker Groq plans to expand its footprint with more than a dozen new data centers in 2026, citing rapid demand growth and strong traction in Asia—particularly India.
AMD, OpenAI sign 6GW deal: OpenAI will deploy 6GW of AMD GPUs under a new multi-year agreement starting in 2026, linking compute expansion to milestone-based equity incentives and deepening their AI infra collaboration.
AI-Powered Telecom Infrastructure
Supermicro, in collaboration with NVIDIA, delivers AI-powered infrastructure tailored for telcos, enhancing operational efficiency, network management, and customer experiences. Explore now
AI Today: What You Need to Know
Private capital surge: European investors including Oaktree, EQT, and Partners Group launch $20 billion in data center deals, riding U.S. AI momentum as global M&A volumes hit record highs with $81 billion in pending transactions.
AI-ready in New Jersey: CoreSite opens a 138,000-square-foot liquid-cooled data center in Secaucus to meet rising AI and HPC workloads, adding to its 4.5 million-square-foot U.S. portfolio across 11 markets.
IBM–AMD–Zyphra alliance: IBM and AMD will provide Zyphra with one of the largest AMD-powered AI training clusters on IBM Cloud, advancing open-source multimodal foundation model development at enterprise scale.
Johnson Controls cooling bet: Johnson Controls invests in Accelsius, a direct-to-chip liquid cooling startup, as AI workloads push data centers toward two-phase systems promising 35% OpEx savings and reduced energy use.
Mapletree enters India: Singapore’s Mapletree will invest up to $700 million to build a 400MW data center in Mumbai, joining global players expanding in India’s fast-growing AI and cloud infrastructure market.
Spain builds defense hub: The Spanish Ministry of Defense launches the €70M Numant-IA project in Soria, combining private cloud and AI infrastructure to enhance cybersecurity and national digital sovereignty.
Power bottlenecks deepen: AI data center growth faces mounting power challenges, from grid interconnection delays to renewable constraints and hardware efficiency limits, threatening to slow hyperscale expansion worldwide.
Ardian enters Ireland: Ardian will acquire 100% of Energia Group from I Squared Capital, marking its first Irish investment and backing renewable and digital infrastructure growth — including a 165MW green-powered data center.