Investment management company Blackstone has more than $70 billion in prospective data center pipeline development.
In its latest earnings call, the world’s largest alternative asset manager said that it also had a current data center portfolio of $55bn, including facilities under construction.
CEO Stephen Schwarzman claimed that "the consequences of AI are as profound as what occurred in 1880 when Thomas Edison patented the electric light bulb."
He said that, "while it took years to develop commercially viable products, the subsequent build out of the electric grid over the following decades has parallels to the creation of data centers today to power the AI revolution."
Schwarzman noted that "current expectations are that there will be approximately $1 trillion of capital expenditures in the United States over the next five years to build and facilitate new data centers, with another $1 trillion of capital expenditures outside the United States.
"The need to provide power for these data centers is a major contributor to an expected 40 percent increase in electricity demand in the United States over the next decade compared to minimal growth in the last decade."
The Blackstone founder said that growth "will lead to unprecedented investment opportunities" for the company, with Blackstone "positioning itself to be the largest financial investor in AI infrastructure in the world as a result of our platform, capital, and expertise."
He added: "Our portfolio today consists of $55bn of data centers, including facilities under construction, along with over $70bn in prospective pipeline development. Our largest data center portfolio company, QTS, has grown lease capacity seven times since we took it private in 2021 [for $10bn]."
Last year, Blackstone said it would invest another $8bn in building AI data centers.
Blackstone has myriad data center investments, including in Vnet, Lumina CloudInfra, Copeland, Park Place Technologies, and Winthrop Technologies, alongside joint ventures with COPT, Digital Realty, and others.
"We're also providing equity and debt capital to other AI-related companies," Schwarzman said. "For example, in the second quarter, we committed to provide AI-focused cloud service provider, CoreWeave, with $4.5bn of a $7.5bn financing package, the largest debt financing in our history, and we're now focusing on addressing the sector's power needs in many differentiated ways.
"With large-scale platforms in infrastructure, real-estate, private credit, and renewable energy, we are extremely well positioned to be the partner of choice in this rapidly growing area."
