Blackstone, Aligned Data Centers Form Strategic Partnership

Blackstone continues to expand its reach in the red-hot data center sector, this week announcing a strategic partnership with Dallas-based Aligned Data Centers.

Blackstone Credit & Insurance (BXCI) has provided an initial $600M senior secured credit facility for the development of Aligned’s newest data center in West Jordan, Utah. The senior secured credit facility is committed entirely by insurance accounts managed by BXCI’s Infrastructure & Asset Based Credit Group.

Aligned, which specializes in build-to-scale data centers, will use the financing to build its fourth hyperscale data center in the Salt Lake City metro area. The project, known as SLC-03, is a two-story, build-to-suit 80 MW facility at the company’s campus in West Jordan.

Anubhav Raj, Aligned’s chief financial officer, described the initiative with BXCI as a strategic financing partnership in the announcement by the two companies.

“The capital demands of this industry make strong financial backing crucial. Strategic financing partnerships focused on ingenuity and collaboration are a key advantage. We are excited to embark on this initial transaction and build on future opportunities with Blackstone,” Raj said.

“This partnership highlights our ability to support large scale digital infrastructure build-out with flexible and efficient financing solutions,” said Robert Horn, global head of Infrastructure & Asset Based Credit at BXCI.

In the release, BXCI said Aligned is one of the fastest-growing data center platforms in the Americas, noting Aligned’s focus on sustainability.

Aligned’s data centers are designed to scale up, allowing densification and vertical growth within the same footprint while reducing the energy, water and space needed to operate.

The company’s data centers replacing traditionally static systems with dynamic “adaptive and intelligent” platforms which ensure that no idle systems consume electricity while maintaining industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), according to the company’s website.

Aligned has developed patented air and liquid cooling systems, including a “hot aisle containment strategy” that captures and removes heat at its source rather than pushing cold air into the data hall.

“Aligned also has made it simple to transition from air-cooled to liquid-cooled system, or (to) deploy hybrid cooling systems combining both air and liquid in the same data hall, eliminating the need to construct new AI-dedicated build-to-suit data centers or completely retrofit and retool existing facilities,” the website said.