Your Evening Briefing: Blackstone’s Huge Bet on the AI Revolution

Off a highway in Phoenix, cranes tower over a stretch of land larger than 60 football fields. The first of five hulking bunkers are under construction. Thirty miles away, engineers are plotting another complex on 400 acres, some three times the footprint of the Mall of America. If all goes as planned, both sites will be home to thousands of computers churning mountains of data, powered by the energy needed for hundreds of thousands of homes. This is Blackstone’s bet on the AI revolution. After its $10 billion takeover of data center operator QTS in 2021, the world’s largest private equity firm is fueling rapid growth at a top landlord for tech giants while bankrolling the massive structures that will handle crucial computing needs—all while reshaping communities across America.

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