Microsoft and BlackRock are jointly investing in data centers and energy to support the fast-growing AI industry. According to Silicon Angle, a new group, the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP), has been formed to do this. In addition to Microsoft and BlackRock, it includes the investment company Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which the latter bought in January for $12.5 billion, as well as the Dubai investor MGX.
It is expected that partners will invest in new data centers and expansion of existing ones to meet the growing demand for computing power. Funds will also be spent on energy infrastructure to create new energy sources for these data centers. The target market for investing funds is the United States, and the remainder will be spent in the territory of “American partner countries.”
According to a GIP press release, it plans to support an open architecture and a broad ecosystem, ensuring full access to the developments of the widest range of companies. NVIDIA will support GAIIP by offering expert advice related to the technical side of AI projects. GAIIP expects to have $30 billion of investment capital available for initial investment in projects, which, in turn, will increase the total investment potential to $100 billion, taking into account debt financing.
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In addition to participating in the new structure, Microsoft has already invested a lot of money in numerous AI-related projects. Thus, in May, Microsoft pledged to allocate $2.2 billion for cloud and AI infrastructure in Malaysia, and a little later in the same month – $3.3 billion for the construction of an AI data center in Wisconsin (USA). In June, the company announced plans to spend $3.2 billion to expand its data center in Sweden. Microsoft’s largest “external” investments in AI are associated with the well-known company OpenAI, in which the IT giant has already invested about $13 billion since 2019, and further investments are quite likely.
Global Infrastructure Partners, founded in 2006, manages more than $100 billion in assets, including major transportation hubs, renewable energy providers, data center operator CyrusOne and a number of other infrastructure companies. In addition, the fund has repeatedly invested in other data center operators.