Shares of Blackstone‘s newly minted investment vehicle opened flat in their market debut on Thursday, after the company raised $1.75 billion in its US initial public offering with plans to buy data centre assets.
New York-based Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust’s stock opened at $20 per share, the same price at which it had sold 87.5 million shares in its IPO.
Artificial intelligence-linked companies have taken centre stage in the US IPO market this week with three billion-dollar offerings, including chipmaker Cerebras and Fervo Energy.
“The timing is crucial because the window can open and close suddenly in thematic IPO markets. Deals like Cerebras, and the huge demand around it, show that the window is wide open right now,” IPOX Research Associate Lukas Muehlbauer told Reuters.
“If it trades well, BXDC may become a template for other sponsors with data centre, power or AI infrastructure assets to launch similar vehicles.”
The Blackstone vehicle will invest primarily in newly constructed data centre assets leased to investment-grade hyperscale tenants. It has identified $25 billion in near-term opportunities in top markets such as Northern Virginia, Ohio, Phoenix, Maryland and Austin, the company said earlier.
Spending on AI infrastructure, such as data centres, by Big Tech firms is expected to exceed $700 billion in 2026.
“Being a new vehicle without having acquired data centre assets so far, investors are primarily buying into Blackstone’s execution capability and long-standing history in the sector,” Muehlbauer said.
Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, holds over $150 billion in data centre assets globally, including QTS and AirTrunk.
QTS’s leased megawatts have soared 14-fold since Blackstone took the company private in 2021, positioning the data centre operator as the asset manager’s most profitable investment to date.
Reuters
