Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke at the company’s Build developer conference in Seattle on May 21, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Microsoft and Black Rock The company is part of a group of companies collaborating to invest up to $100 billion in developing data centers for artificial intelligence and the energy infrastructure to run them.
The companies are part of the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP), which was announced in a press release on Tuesday. Other participants are Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an infrastructure investment firm that is being acquired by BlackRock, and MGX, a tech investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates.
“We are committed to ensuring that AI can help drive innovation and foster growth in all sectors of the economy,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. He said the effort is “bringing together leaders in finance and industry to build the infrastructure of the future and make it run in a sustainable way.”
The group is seeking to raise $30 billion in capital initially, with a goal of raising up to $100 billion in future, including through debt financing.
Technology companies are NVIDIA Graphic processing units (GPUs) capable of running generative AI models like those powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. These GPUs consume a lot of power, so the surge in demand has created a bottleneck in ramping up new facilities.
Microsoft’s investment comes on top of capital expenditures needed to expand its Azure public cloud infrastructure, which serves OpenAI and other AI customers. Microsoft said in July that its fourth-quarter capital expenditures, including assets acquired through finance leases, totaled $19 billion.
BlackRock announced its intention to acquire GIP in January for $3 billion in cash and about 12 million shares of BlackRock common stock. BlackRock said last week that the acquisition is expected to close on Oct. 1.
MGX was launched in March, with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala and AI company G42 as founding partners.