The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that an investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft and Nvidia is buying one of the world's biggest data-centre operators with nearly 80 facilities in a deal worth $40-billion (U.S.) to secure coveted computing capacity for artificial intelligence. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says the purchase of U.S.-based Aligned Data Centers from Australian Macquarie Asset Management on Wednesday is the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed last year, which includes Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX and Elon Musk's start-up xAI among its backers. "With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI," said BlackRock chief executive officer Larry Fink, who also serves as the chairman of the AI Infrastructure Partnership. The acquisition is the latest in a series of big-ticket deals involving Big Tech and Silicon Valley start-ups that has been fuelled by the boom in AI. Major tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and CoreWeave, are on track to spend $400-billion (U.S.) on AI infrastructure this year. Meta is building several multigigawatt AI data centres.