Who owns Aligned Data Centers? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Aligned Data Centers is one of the largest privately owned data center operators in the Americas. It builds and runs the hyperscale campuses that house the servers behind cloud computing and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. The company started small, with two sites and 85 megawatts of capacity, and grew into a platform of more than 6.4 gigawatts across five countries. That growth is the reason its ownership is worth understanding.

Aligned has never been a public company. Its equity has passed through a small number of large institutions rather than public shareholders, and each transfer has raised the price. The most recent transfer, completed in July 2026, is the biggest data center deal ever struck. It moved Aligned from one infrastructure investor, Macquarie, to a consortium built specifically to fund the AI buildout.

This article traces who has owned Aligned, who owns it now, and why the structure matters for a business that sits at the center of the AI infrastructure race.

Aligned Data Centers was founded in 2013 as Aligned Energy by Jakob Carnemark. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The company designs, builds, and operates hyperscale and build-to-scale data centers, leasing capacity to cloud providers, large enterprises, and AI companies under long-term contracts. Its early pitch centered on energy efficiency and adaptive cooling technology that let customers scale power density without rebuilding.

Andrew Schaap became chief executive in 2017 after the founder stepped back from day-to-day leadership. Schaap came from Digital Realty, one of the largest public data center landlords, and brought more than two decades of experience in data centers, IT, and real estate.

The business has scaled quickly. It began with two facilities, in Dallas and Phoenix, holding 85 megawatts of operational capacity. By 2026 it operated a platform of 51 campuses with more than 6.4 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity across the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. The 2025 acquisition set Aligned's enterprise value at roughly $40 billion, up sharply from where prior deals had priced it.

Aligned Data Centers is privately held. It has no shares traded on any public exchange, and it does not file public financial statements. Ownership sits with a small group of institutional investors and the funds they manage. Because the company is private, its exact cap table is not fully disclosed, and the precise equity split among current owners has not been made public.

For most of its scale-up, Aligned was controlled by Macquarie Asset Management, the investment arm of Australia's Macquarie Group. Macquarie made its first investment in April 2018 through its Macquarie Infrastructure Partners IV fund, taking control of the company. It added to that position in July 2020 through Macquarie Infrastructure Partners V. Over eight years of Macquarie ownership, Aligned grew from a two-site operator into a platform spanning the Americas.

That era ended in 2026. In October 2025, a consortium agreed to acquire all of the equity in Aligned from Macquarie. The buyers were the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), Abu Dhabi's MGX, and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). The transaction closed on July 21, 2026, at an enterprise value of about $40 billion, making it the largest data center deal on record. Macquarie exited in full.

The AI Infrastructure Partnership is the key to understanding the new ownership. AIP was launched in September 2024 by BlackRock, GIP, MGX, Microsoft, and Nvidia to fund next-generation AI infrastructure. It later added xAI, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Temasek as partners, with Cisco as a technology partner. So while the formal buyers are three entities, the economic backers behind them include some of the most active names in AI, including funds and corporations tied to Nvidia, Microsoft, and xAI. Several of these companies, including Nvidia, Microsoft, and xAI, are also customers or suppliers to the data center industry, which ties their ownership stake directly to the demand they help create.

Aligned has raised roughly $16 billion in equity and debt across its life, most of it during the Macquarie era to fund construction. The table below summarizes the major ownership and capital events. Exact per-round equity amounts before 2025 were not disclosed publicly.

BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners is one of the world's largest infrastructure investors and became part of BlackRock after its 2024 acquisition. GIP is one of the three named buyers and anchors the deal's financial firepower.

MGX is an Abu Dhabi technology investment firm chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with backing from Mubadala Investment Company and G42. It is one of the most active sovereign-linked investors in AI infrastructure.

The AI Infrastructure Partnership pools capital from BlackRock, GIP, MGX, Microsoft, Nvidia, xAI, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Temasek. AIP has said it aims to mobilize $30 billion of equity, with the potential to reach $100 billion including debt. Aligned is one of its flagship holdings.

Andrew Schaap is chief executive and a board member. He runs the company day to day and has led it through its largest growth phase and two changes of ownership. His tenure since 2017 has given Aligned continuity even as its controlling shareholders changed.

Jakob Carnemark founded the company in 2013 and served as its early chief executive before Schaap took over. His role in current governance is limited, and the founding team no longer controls the business.

Ultimate control now rests with the board and the consortium behind it. As the buyer of 100% of the equity, the AIP, MGX, and GIP group appoints directors and sets strategy. The specific board composition after the 2026 close has not been fully disclosed, which is common for a private company owned by a fund consortium. What is confirmed is that the founding shareholders and Macquarie no longer hold equity, and that operational leadership stayed with Schaap.

The consortium that now owns Aligned also backs other large AI projects, which concentrates a growing share of AI compute capacity in a handful of investors. Critics have raised questions about whether the same group funding data centers, chips, and AI models at once creates conflicts of interest or reduces competition. The overlap between Aligned's owners and its customers is the clearest example.

Hyperscale data centers consume large amounts of electricity, and Aligned's 6.4-gigawatt pipeline adds significant load in the markets where it builds. Utilities, regulators, and local communities have pushed back in several US regions over rising power demand, water use for cooling, and the cost of grid upgrades. These pressures are a material risk to how fast Aligned can build out its planned capacity.

MGX and the Kuwait Investment Authority are sovereign-linked investors from the Gulf, and their role in owning critical US digital infrastructure can draw regulatory attention. Deals that place strategically important assets under partial foreign ownership are subject to national security review in the United States. The 2026 close cleared its approvals, but the pattern of sovereign capital in US data centers remains a watched issue.

Ownership shapes how much capital Aligned can spend and how fast it can grow. Data centers are extraordinarily expensive to build, and the owner's balance sheet sets the ceiling. Under Macquarie, Aligned scaled from two sites to a continent-spanning platform. Under a consortium designed to deploy tens of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, the ceiling is higher still. The roughly $40 billion valuation reflects that expectation of continued, capital-heavy expansion.

The identity of the owners also matters because they are not passive. Several backers of the AI Infrastructure Partnership, including Nvidia, Microsoft, and xAI, are also the companies that need data center capacity. That alignment can guarantee demand for Aligned's facilities, since the same firms funding the buildout are among those most likely to lease it. It also blurs the line between landlord and tenant in a way that traditional real estate ownership does not.

For competitors, Aligned's ownership raises the stakes. Rivals such as Vantage Data Centers are chasing the same hyperscale and AI demand, and access to consortium-scale capital is now a competitive weapon. Understanding which investors stand behind each operator is central to any market analysis of the data center sector.

Finally, the structure matters for stability. A private company owned by long-term infrastructure funds is insulated from the quarter-to-quarter pressure of public markets. That lets Aligned commit to multi-year builds without answering to public shareholders. The trade-off is less transparency: with no public filings, outsiders see far less of how the business performs than they would for a listed operator.

As of July 2026, Aligned Data Centers is owned by a consortium made up of the AI Infrastructure Partnership, MGX, and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners. They bought 100% of the equity from Macquarie Asset Management, which had controlled the company since 2018.

Andrew Schaap is the chief executive. He has held the role since 2017, joining from Digital Realty, and he also sits on the company's board.

No. Aligned is privately held and has no shares listed on any stock exchange. Its equity is owned by institutional investors and the funds they manage, and it does not publish public financial statements.

Jakob Carnemark founded the company in 2013 as Aligned Energy and served as its early chief executive. The founding team no longer controls the business.

The 2025 acquisition valued Aligned at about $40 billion in enterprise value, the largest data center deal on record. The company has raised roughly $16 billion in equity and debt over its life, including a $12 billion-plus raise in January 2025.

The AI Infrastructure Partnership pools capital from BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, MGX, Microsoft, Nvidia, xAI, the Kuwait Investment Authority, and Temasek. So while three entities are the formal buyers, the economic backers include several of the biggest names in AI and infrastructure investing.