A group of investors including BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Elon Musk’s xAI have agreed to buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management for $40 billion, Bloomberg reports.
Aligned builds and operates large campuses for cloud and enterprise clients, managing approximately 50 facilities in North and South America with over 5 gigawatts of capacity. The company will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
The buyers will be part of the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership, a consortium formed last year by BlackRock and MGX to invest tens of billions of dollars in AI-based computing projects.
This is a significant development for the mining industry, as traditional companies are now entering the game.
VanEck’s head of digital asset research, Matthew Siegel, calculated that the $40 billion price tag «implies a valuation of approximately $8 million per megawatt» of capacity. This is significantly higher than the roughly $3 million per megawatt typically paid by publicly traded mining companies like Iris Energy, Riot Platforms, Cipher Mining, and Hut 8.
If miners gain access to project funding, it will increase their stake in the capital by 150-500%, Siegel said.
This difference, which now stands at around 160% per megawatt, indicates a growing convergence between AI data center infrastructure and Bitcoin mining.