Private equity cash fuels data center buildout
May 26, 2026
While big tech firms have drawn scrutiny and local resistance for the massive buildout of data centers, private equity and credit firms are also playing a critically important behind the scenes roll in data center financing and development.
S&P recently reported that private equity investment in US data centers jumped to $45.70 billion in 2025, the highest total in at least five years. This accounts for 72% of the overall $63.35 billion investment in the nation’s data center space.
“Largest investor in AI-related infrastructure in the world”
During the firm’s earnings call in April, private equity giant Blackstone’s CEO Stephen Schwarzman said “Blackstone has become the largest investor in AI-related infrastructure in the world,” adding “Our total portfolio now consists of over $150 billion of data centers globally, including facilities under construction, and it continues to grow rapidly with an additional $160 billion in prospective pipeline development,” Schwarzman said.
Blackstone, for example, announced in April that it would be the majority equity investor in the massive $16 billion Stargate data center in Saline Township, Michigan. The data center has drawn significant local opposition and was rejected by both the town’s board and its planning commission in September. The developer, private equity-backed Related Digital, sued and the township settled, allowing construction on the data center to begin.
Other Blackstone data center investments have drawn concerns about their impacts on local communities. For example, residents of Fayetteville, Georgia recently discovered that a data center owned by Blackstone’s QTS sucked up nearly 30 million gallons of water without initially paying for it. When the county utility investigated, officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups feeding Blackstone’s data center campus. The data center’s water usage far exceeded the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process. Blackstone’s Fayetteville campus is one of the largest data center developments in the country, covering 615 acres with plans for up to 16 buildings. Georgia is experiencing high levels of drought, and its Governor declared a state of emergency last month in response to one of Georgia’s worst wildfire outbreaks in years.
Private equity owns half of the largest US data center owners
Private equity and private infrastructure firms are not just investing in the construction of new data centers. They have also been very active in acquiring large data center owners like QTS, CyrusOne, Aligned Data Centers, DataBank, Switch, STACK Infrastructure, and CoreSite.
A review of the top 25 US data center owners as of 2025 shows that nearly half of them are owned by or have significant joint ventures with private equity firms. Private equity firms are the largest owners of data centers other than big tech companies.
Top 25 Largest Data Center Companies in the U.S. by Active IT Capacity:
| Rank | Company | U.S. Data Centers | 2025 U.S. Active IT Capacity | Operator Type | PE Owners |
| 1 | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | 105 | 2.3 GW | Hyperscale Tier One | |
| 2 | Meta | 63 | 1.5 GW | Hyperscale Tier One | |
| 3 | Microsoft Azure | 55 | 1.2 GW | Hyperscale Tier One | |
| 4 | Equinix | 91 | 995 MW | Colocation | |
| 5 | QTS | 33 | 811 MW | Colocation | Blackstone |
| 6 | Digital Realty | 83 | 686 MW | Colocation | $7 billion joint venture with Blackstone |
| 7 | CyrusOne | 43 | 674 MW | Colocation | KKR, BlackRock, Pantheon Infrastructure |
| 8 | Aligned Data Centers | 15 | 548 MW | Hyperscale Tier Two | BlackRock, Kuwait Investment Authority, Temasek Holdings |
| 9 | DataBank | 74 | 544 MW | Colocation | DigitalBridge Group, Brookside Equity, AustralianSuper, Ardian, Swiss Life, Allstate, EDF Invest |
| 10 | Google Cloud | 22 | 508 MW | Hyperscale Tier One | |
| 11 | Oracle | 28 | 470 MW | Hyperscale Tier One | |
| 12 | Switch | 18 | 445 MW | Colocation | IFM Investors, DigitalBridge Group, Aware Super |
| 13 | STACK Infrastructure | 35 | 410 MW | Hyperscale Tier Two | Blue Owl Capital |
| 14 | CoreSite | 31 | 331 MW | Colocation | Stonepeak Infrastructure |
| 15 | NTT Global Data Centers | 70 | 322 MW | Colocation | |
| 16 | Vantage Data Centers | 20 | 314 MW | Colocation | Silver Lake Partners, DigitalBridge Group, Pantheon Infrastructure, AustralianSuper, Infranity, GIC, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority |
| 17 | CloudHQ | 7 | 260 MW | Hyperscale Tier Two | |
| 18 | Hut 8 | 7 | 240 MW | Neocloud | |
| 19 | Iron Mountain | 18 | 233 MW | Colocation | |
| 20 | Cipher Mining | 5 | 231 MW | Hyperscale Tier Two | |
| 21 | Centersquare | 55 | 229 MW | Colocation | Brookfield Asset Management |
| 22 | Flexential | 39 | 228 MW | Colocation | Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, GI Partners |
| 23 | CoreWeave | 14 | 212 MW | Neocloud | |
| 24 | Sabey Data Centers | 20 | 210 MW | Colocation | |
| 25 | TierPoint | 39 | 183 MW | Colocation | Apollo |
Investment Risks
S&P reported that private equity’s capital surge comes with significant risks — ranging from immediate execution challenges and power constraints to longer-term uncertainties around shifting demand dynamics.
“We’re increasingly seeing data center projects get delayed over time, and those delays result in the chips not getting turned on at the right time, which leads to revenue not coming in the door on schedule as people had previously underwritten,” Gordon Bell, principal for strategy and execution at EY-Parthenon, told S&P.
In addition to providing capital to data centers, private equity firms own large data center developers like Cloverleaf Infrastructure (NGP, Sandbrook Capital), and Stream Data Centers (Apollo), and Related Digital (Related Companies).
US Data Center Investments, 2021-2025
Private equity firms acquire electric utilities to power data centers
In addition to financing the data center buildout and owning large data center companies, private equity firms like Blackstone and BlackRock in recent years have sought to acquire power infrastructure to power energy-hungry data centers, including electric utilities that serve millions of customers.
BlackRock acquired private infrastructure firm Global Infrastructure Partners in 2024 and has since gone on a utility buying spree, acquiring Minnesota and Wisconsin utility holding company ALLETE in 2025 and announcing in March that it seeking to acquire AES Corp, which owns electric utilities in Ohio and Indiana and over 32 gigawatts of power generation assets globally.
On Blackstone’s April earnings call, CEO Stephen Schwarzman said, “We’ve also become one of the largest investors in the modernization and growth of the US electric grid given the rising demand for energy, including to power data centers. Specifically, we are the most active private investor in the utility sector over the past several years.”
Blackstone is currently trying to acquire TXNM Energy, an electric utility that serves 800,000 customers in New Mexico and Texas. Multiple intervenors, including New Mexico’s Attorney General, have alleged that Blackstone may have violated state law in the rush to acquire TXNM.
