BlackRock is making a major bet on Britain’s data center market, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to a venture that will target underused facilities as demand for AI infrastructure accelerates.
The world’s largest asset manager plans to invest as much as £500 million ($678 million) in a new venture called Digital Gravity Partners, reports Bloomberg.
The move comes as BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink prepares to join US President Donald Trump on a state visit to the UK, where billions in cross-border investments are expected to be unveiled.
The project starts with a site in west London, run with operator Gravity Edge. Instead of building giant new facilities for tech titans like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, the plan is to buy existing data centers that still have unused power capacity.
Says Thomas Mueller-Borja, BlackRock’s global co-head of real estate,
“We are trying to find existing assets that are underutilized but have power. We aren’t doing ground-up development for hyper scalers.”
Investors worldwide are racing to grab digital infrastructure as AI adoption explodes. Hyperscale projects often cost billions, but BlackRock says it sees more opportunities in smaller, cheaper sites that serve enterprise customers. The firm’s strategy is to sell upgraded properties at a higher valuation.
BlackRock real estate co-chief Paul Tebbit says,
“We are always really focused on exit liquidity. One of the attractive things about this strategy, given the lot sizes we are creating, we can see real estate funds or infrastructure funds being the end buyer.”
The firm has already committed more than £100 million ($126 million) from its €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) Europe Property Fund VI, raised in July.
The news comes as OpenAI and Nvidia are gearing up to channel billions of dollars into UK data centers. The two companies are expected to announce their plans during President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain this week, when American firms across multiple industries are expected to unveil tens of billions of dollars in new investments.
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