Global Infrastructure Partners is reportedly close to buying utility AES Corporation for $38bn to benefit from increased power demand for artificial intelligence, and last week concluded a $40bn buyout of Aligned Data Centers. These two huge corporate M&A deals are part of a GIP-led deal spree following its 2024 buyout by BlackRock.
One year ago, BlackRock closed its buyout of Global Infrastructure Partners to “drive the growth of infrastructure and deliver superior investment opportunities for clients globally”, according to BlackRock chairman and chief executive Larry Fink. GIP hasn’t been hanging around since then.
GIP is reportedly close to buying US utility AES Corporation in a deal worth $38bn, including AES debts totalling $29bn. This is one of its largest corporate merger and acquisition (M&A) deals to date, and is driven by two main factors.
First, GIP wants to invest in businesses that will benefit from growing electricity demand to power increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) and, second, AES’s share price is currently trading at around half of the level it was at the start of 2023.
AES has a portfolio totalling more than 32GW, with renewables including wind, solar and hydro making up 64% of the total; natural gas accounting for 23%; and coal for 12%. The company reported £12.3bn of annual revenue in 2024 and served 17million customers. It also reported in its 2024 results that it has signed 9.5GW of power purchase agreements with technology giants including Amazon (5.6GW), Google (1.8GW) and Microsoft (1.8GW)
GIP and AES have not commented publicly and, while the deal is at an advanced stage, there is no certainty that it will be agreed. It would build on the partnership between GIP and AES’s South American subsidiary AES Andes that started in 2021 to jointly invest in renewables projects in Chile. The tie-up grew in 2023 and now has 1.4GW of assets.
AES is not GIP’s only US utility target either.
On 3rd October, the investor gained approval from regulators in the state of Minnesota to buy developer Allete Clean Energy for $6.2bn in a 60:40 joint venture with investment giant Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Allete has a 1.25GW portfolio of operational renewable energy assets in seven US states, and the approval is key to the takeover of Allete that was agreed in May 2024.
Outside the US, GIP agreed in April 2025 to pay $1bn for a 70% stake in Aliança Energia, which is the renewable energy arm of Brazilian mining group Vale. Aliança’s portfolio is made up of 2.2GW of hydro, wind and solar projects. Most of the power created by these assets is used by parent company Vale.
Beyond utilities, GIP’s interest in takeovers includes those directly involved in AI.
On 15th October, a GIP-led consortium including Microsoft, Nvidia and the Emirati-owned investment firm MGX Fund Management agreed a $40bn buyout of Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management. The group includes investment platform the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), which was set up in September 2024 by GIP, BlackRock, MGX, Microsoft and Nvidia with the aim to mobilise $30bn equity investment into AI, and with cornerstone backing from the Kuwait Investment Authority and Temasek.
The Aligned Data Centers portfolio is comprised of 50 data centre campuses with at least 5GW of operational and planned capacity. The buyout is subject to regulatory approvals and is due to close in the first half of 2026.
Bayo Ogunlesi, chairman and chief executive of GIP, said the consortium wanted to back Aligned following a decade of rapid expansion: “AI is reshaping every sector of the global economy. By combining Aligned’s scalable, adaptable platform with AIP’s capital and capabilities, we will build the infrastructure to support innovation at scale – creating resilient, sustainable communities and unlocking transformative growth worldwide.”
Investing in CCUS technology
AI is not the only emerging energy technology attracting GIP’s attention.
In August, the company agreed to buy a 49.99% stake in Eni CCUS Holding, a global platform focused on carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) developments. The Italian giant Eni retains a 50.01% stake. Eni has said CCUS is set to be “one of the key levers of the energy transition” because it is “currently the most efficient and effective decarbonisation tool to support hard-to-abate industries” to reduce their emissions.
Eni CCUS owns the Liverpool Bay and Bacton projects in the UK; the L10 project in the Netherlands; and has the option to take part in the Ravenna CCS project in Italy. All four projects are intended to help decarbonise industrial clusters by permanently sequestering carbon dioxide emissions from businesses in hard-to-abate sectors.
These deals show two important factors about GIP’s strategy.
First, it is using the financial firepower of BlackRock to drive its investment plans following its $12.5bn takeover that was announced in January 2024; and second, AI plays a central role in its current M&A drive but it is looking at other energy transition technologies too.
GIP has plenty more to do. And following the close of its fifth flagship fund in July, totalling $25.2bn from 278 institutions in 35 countries, it has plenty of money to do deals with.
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