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Please join The Information at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 27, for The Information’s “Financing the AI Revolution” forum. Hear from top executives and investors on how the rapid build-out of AI is reshaping tech, finance and capital markets. Learn more here. Welcome back! It’s Valida and Anissa. The AI-driven scramble for compute is still powering red-hot data center acquisitions even as overall technology deals slowed in the first quarter this year. In the latest example, Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, agreed to acquire a 49% stake in Rowan Digital Infrastructure, a five-year-old data center developer based in Denver, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The agreement, which follows a report by The Information last week that Blackstone was nearing a deal for Rowan, would likely value the data center company at about $3.8 billion not including debt, and Blackstone is expected to gain strong control rights, according to one of the people. Rowan has generally developed data centers that do traditional computing tasks in the U.S. for tech customers, though it has also developed AI centers. Amazon Web Services has rented space at a Rowan data center in Maryland. Rowan has raised more than $4 billion in construction debt since mid-2024 to build data centers across the U.S. While valuations for AI-focused data center developers such as CoreWeave and Crusoe have exploded in recent years, another group of more mature developers including Rowan and Aligned Data Center carry lower valuations and are attractive to investors and buyers who want to own part of the AI infrastructure boom. These developers are also considered less risky bets because they have built data centers for traditional cloud computing as well as AI, so aren't entirely depending on the current boom, some bankers and lawyers who worked on data center deals said. Already this year, U.K.-based cloud provider Nscale agreed to buy American Intelligence & Power, a company that is developing a data center complex in West Virginia. And in March an investor consortium including BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners and Swedish private firm EQT agreed to buy energy provider AES for about $10.7 billion in cash. Blackstone wasn‘t the only suitor for Rowan. The data center company’s owner, private equity firm Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, had been in advanced discussions to sell a stake in Rowan to investment firm Sixth Street, but Sixth Street backed out last month, according to one of the people. The Rowan deal speaks to Blackstone’s ambition to expand its already sizable data center footprint across the world. The investment giant is among the largest active investors in data centers, with about $130 billion of assets and slightly more than that in development, according to a person familiar with the company. It bought data center developer QTS for about $10 billion five years ago and has since spent billions of dollars expanding the business in the U.S. and Europe. QTS has grown its leased capacity 14-fold after the 2021 takeover. In 2024, Blackstone agreed to acquire AirTrunk, an Australia-based developer of large-scale computing facilities, in a deal valued at about $16 billion. AirTrunk develops data centers in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Blackstone’s approach to data center investment is cautious. It often first signs longer-term leases of at least 15 years with hyperscalers that have investment-grade credit ratings, before it starts building the data centers, according to the person familiar with its thinking. Blackstone has held early discussions with investors about forming a publicly traded data center investment vehicle, said one person with knowledge of the talks. Instead of going after more speculative raw land or development projects, the new company would invest in already-built and leased data centers, Bloomberg reported in February. “This is not bubble-type work,” Blackstone CEO Schwarzman said in an interview with CNBC last December, brushing off concerns about data center investments. “This is extremely conservative.”
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