Mubadala acquires minority stake in US company Aligned Data Centres

Investment is part of company push to expand its global digital infrastructure portfolio

Aligned Data Centre facilities in Virginia, US. Photo: Mubadala

Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investment arm, has made an investment in the US-based Aligned Data Centres, as it continues to expand its global digital infrastructure portfolio.

With the latest investment, Mubadala will become a minority stakeholder in the pan-Americas data centre company, alongside majority partners managed by Macquarie Asset Management, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Mubadala did not give the size of its stake in Aligned nor the financial details of the transaction.

“Our investment will support Aligned’s rapid expansion, further reinforcing the company’s position as a preferred partner in the Pan-American data centre market,” said Khaled Al Qubaisi, chief executive of real estate and infrastructure investments at Mubadala.

“In addition to Aligned’s continued business growth, we are further excited by its AI-ready status, making it strategically positioned to support infrastructure requirements for a broad set of … services.”

Aligned offers solutions to support global hyperscale and enterprise customers, helping to meet the demand for sustainable and scalable infrastructure.

The company’s footprint will span more than 2.5 gigawatts of critical capacity across more than 40 data centres at full build-out, Mubadala said.

While the majority of the group’s operations are in North America, Aligned has recently expanded into Latin America with its acquisition of LatAm data centre provider Odata.

The deal positions Aligned among the largest private data centre operators in the Americas. Its growing Latin American operations include data centres in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

The partnership with Mubadala will “support Aligned’s continued growth trajectory and expanding data centre platform, as well as a collective focus on building a more sustainable future through innovative, efficient infrastructure”, said Andrew Schaap, chief executive at Aligned.

“This investment is a testament to our … ability to quickly address the growing capacity demands and requirements of our loyal hyperscale and enterprise customers across the Americas.”

Khaled Al Qubaisi, chief executive of real estate and infrastructure investments at Mubadala. Pawan Singh / The National

The Aligned investment builds on Mubadala’s growing digital infrastructure presence in the US.

In June, Mubadala committed to invest $500 million in the US-based broadband and telecoms services company Brightspeed to take a minority stake.

Mubadala is investing in the company alongside investment funds managed by affiliates of New York-listed Apollo Global Management, it said at the time.

Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brightspeed is the fifth-largest “incumbent local exchange carrier” in the US, with the capability of serving more than 6.5 million homes and businesses in mainly rural and suburban communities in the US Midwest, South-East and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The recent investments are part of Mubadala’s rapidly expanding global digital infrastructure portfolio.

Mubadala’s real estate and infrastructure investments platform, which focuses at investments in traditional and digital infrastructure around the globe, has a strong deal pipeline, Mr Al Qubaisi told The National in an interview in April.

The platform – one of the four core businesses of Mubadala – has invested about $7 billion since being carved out as a separate pillar in 2021. At any given time, it is actively evaluating 10 deals each in digital and traditional infrastructure sectors, as well as real estate transactions, he said at the time.

Last year, Mubadala invested $350 million into Princeton Digital Group, a pan-Asian data centre company focused on expanding data centre services to meet increasing demand in Asia.

The Abu Dhabi company has also invested £800 million ($1.02 billion) in CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full-fibre platform.