Blackstone's $13.3 Billion Investment in UK AI Data Centers: A Game-Changer for Tech and Economy

Blackstone To Invest $13.3B In AI Data Center In UK, Projects 4,000 New Jobs - Blackstone (NYSE:BX)

The project will create 4,000 jobs and invest £110 million in local infrastructure and skills training in Blyth. Blackstone Inc. BX is investing 10 billion pounds ($13.3 billion) in England to establish what is expected to be one of Europe's largest artificial intelligence data centers. The construction on the site is scheduled to begin next year. The center is projected to generate 4,000 jobs for British citizens and makes good on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's promise to unlock new growth opportunities. 'The number one mission of my government is to grow our economy so that hard-working British people reap the benefits - and more foreign investment is a crucial part of that plan," Starmer said, calling the Blackstone deal "a huge vote of confidence." Blackstone COO Jon Gray said the firm is "making significant commitments to building social housing, facilitating the energy transition, growing life sciences companies and developing critical infrastructure needed to fuel the digital economy." This week, Blackstone also announced that, along with Vista Equity Partners, it is acquiring Smartsheet for $8.4 billion in cash at $56.50 per share. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via EA Series Trust WHITEWOLF Publicly Listed Private Equity ETF LBO and WBI BullBear Quality 3000 ETF WBIL. Price Action: BX shares are up 0.15% at $153 at last check Thursday. Read Next: Marjorie Taylor Greene Stays Loyal To Trump, Keeps DJT Stock, Buys Into Warren Buffett's Berkshire In Latest Trades Image: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Blackstone bets £10B on AI with UK datacenter development

Construction slated to begin next year at site of failed BritishVolt plant US investment giant Blackstone is plowing £10 billion ($13.4 billion) into a massive AI datacenter project located in northeast England, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday. The facility, touted as the "biggest AI datacenter" in Europe, is slated for construction near Blyth, Northumberland, at the site of the now defunct BritishVolt battery plant. The project is expected to bring more than 4,000 jobs to the region, 1,200 of which will be related to the construction of the site. "New investment such as the one we've announced with Blackstone today is a huge vote of confidence in the UK and it proves that Britain is back as a major player on the global stage and we're open for business," Starmer said in a canned statement. Alongside the £10 billion to fund the datacenter, Blackstone has also committed to investing £110 million to upskill workers to run the facility and upgrade transportation infrastructure in the region. However, we expect the bulk of Blackstone's investment will go to AI accelerators, though it remains to be seen whose chips will power the facility. While Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell accelerators might seem the natural choice due to the maturity of the GPU giant's software and hardware ecosystem, Intel and AMD have grown far more competitive in recent generations. AMD's Instinct MI300-series accelerators have gained considerable momentum in recent quarters, with the House of Zen forecasting the GPUs will drive $4.5 billion in revenues in 2024. Meanwhile, Intel this week officially launched its Gaudi3 accelerators, which boast performance competitive with Nvidia's venerable H100s, while undercutting them on price. Whatever accelerators end up powering the facility, Blackstone will be able to afford a lot of them. While it might seem strange for a private equity firm to be building datacenters, the business of renting AI infrastructure has become an incredibly lucrative enterprise. As our sibling site The Next Platform previously explored, an investment of about $1.5 billion to build, deploy, and network an AI datacenter today would net you roughly $5.27 billion in revenues within four years. With an investment totaling $13.4 billion, Blackstone should make a killing on the site, if, of course, AI boom doesn't fizzle before it comes online. Blackstone is also no stranger to these developments. This spring, the investment firm joined BlackRock and others to inject $7.5 billion in debt financing into CoreWeave's rent-a-GPU racket. Whether Blackstone decided to cut out the middleman and launch a GPU cloud of its own or if it'll tap another firm like CoreWeave to actually run the Blyth site remains to be seen. Having said that, we can't help but notice that earlier this year CoreWeave announced a £1 billion project to establish a European headquarters in London and construct a pair of AI datacenters in the UK. We've reached out to Blackstone for comment on the datacenter development; we'll let you know if we hear anything back. ®

Blackstone £10bn investment in Blyth AI data centre confirmed

A £10bn investment in a new artificial intelligence data centre will create about 4,000 jobs, the government has said. The site in Blyth, Northumberland, will become one of Europe's biggest AI data centres. The land was bought by private equity giant Blackstone earlier this year, after the collapse of Britishvolt which had planned to build an electric car battery factory on the site. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the investment showed that the UK was "open for business".

AI Data Centres in the UK: Blackstone's $13Billion Investment

The Britain-based UK startup Britishvolt which intended to construct a large battery factory in Blyth, Northumberland went bankrupt last year. This derailed national ambitions to build an indigenous domestic battery industry. Blackstone's new investment opens the window again for resuscitating the region's economy. The president and chief operating officer of Blackstone said, "This investment not only demonstrates our confidence in the future of the UK's technology sector but also our commitment to contributing to local communities." Alongside the data center, Blackstone has agreed to commit £110 million to a local fund targeting skills training and transportation infrastructure improvements in Blyth. It remains to be seen whether this investment will uplift the UK's economy or ruin the nation's environment with carbon emissions. According to the Guardian, the AI emissions of Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta-controlled data centers amount to 662% higher than the actual claims. Read more