Microsoft, the biggest backer of Sam Altman’s OpenAI, and BlackRock, which has an executive on the artificial intelligence startup’s board, are joining forces with one of its chief rivals.
Abu Dhabi’s MGX, Microsoft and BlackRock said Elon Musk’s xAI is joining their effort to build $30 billion worth of data centers and other artificial intelligence infrastructure. The AI chipmaker Nvidia, which was already named as a technical adviser to the group when it was announced last year, is also formally joining, according to a statement on March 19 that didn’t detail member commitments.
Microsoft, which has invested about $13 billion in OpenAI, has increasingly been developing AI outside of that partnership. The software giant has created in-house AI models that it believes can compete with OpenAI, Bloomberg News reported this month. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, has meanwhile publicly feuded with Altman over the company’s efforts to shift to a for-profit structure.
MGX has also backed OpenAI, poured money into xAI, and is among entities helping bankroll U.S. President Donald Trump’s $100 billion AI investment plan dubbed Stargate. It’s overseen by one of the world’s most influential dealmakers — Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — who met Trump in the U.S. this week.
The capital demands and enthusiasm for AI have prompted a range of companies and investors to forge alliances to build some of the biggest data center campuses in the world. Sheikh Tahnoon planned to talk with Trump about increasing Emirati investment in the U.S., technology and energy, Bloomberg News has reported.
The Microsoft-backed group will be renamed the AI Infrastructure Partnership, or AIP, and focus on infrastructure investments — including energy projects — mostly in the U.S., with a portion of the funds to be deployed in partner countries, according to the companies. The plan foresees bringing on additional investors. Clients, including pension funds and insurers, are eager for such long-term infrastructure projects, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in the statement.
BlackRock and Microsoft last year unveiled the coalition in partnership with MGX and Bayo Ogunlesi’s Global Infrastructure Partners. The companies said at the time they would seek $30 billion of private equity capital over an unspecified time frame and eventually leverage as much as $100 billion in potential investments.
The consortium said energy suppliers NextEra Energy and GE Vernova have “agreed to collaborate with AIP to accelerate the scaling of critical and diverse energy solutions for AI data centers.” In January, the two companies announced a partnership to capitalize on the surge in spending for AI data centers.
The rush to invest in AI has had enormous impact on global electricity demand. By 2034, energy consumption from data centers is expected to top 1,580 terawatt hours, as much as used in India today, Bloomberg reported last year.
