Blackstone Seizes Bigger Role in U.S. Data Center, AI Markets

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Blackstone Incorporated (NYSE:BX) (New York, New York) recently acquired a power plant in northern Virginia's Loudon County, which is home to about 25% of U.S. data center capacity. The deal could make Blackstone one of the leading providers of power to domestic data centers--a sector in which the company, through subsidiary Quality Technology Services (QTS), already has an established presence. Industrial Info is tracking more than $32 billion worth of active and proposed data center projects across the U.S. from Blackstone, more than 25% of which is attributed to projects nearing or under construction.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing Blackstone's active and proposed data center projects, by U.S. state.

The 774-megawatt (MW) Potomac Energy Center in Leesburg, Virginia, began operations in mid-2017, when it was owned and operated by an affiliate of the now-defunct Panda Power Funds, and was acquired by Ares Management Corporation in 2021. Blackstone provided few details on last week's deal, but "sources familiar with the matter" told Reuters that Blackstone is paying upwards of $1 billion for the facility. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power Plant Database can learn more about the Potomac Energy Center in a detailed plant profile.

"This investment underscores Blackstone's commitment to investing in the electric infrastructure required to power AI (artificial intelligence) innovation," said Bilal Khan, the senior managing director at Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, in a press release. "We believe Potomac is well-positioned to help meet data center-driven power demand growth in Northern Virginia."

QTS owns and operates more than 25 data centers and data-center campuses across the U.S., including nine in Virginia. These include the Richmond II DC Campus in Sandston, Virginia, where the company has four major, operational buildings and four more in development. Two of these started construction in the summer of 2024: the $360 million DC5 and the $360 million DC6. Each two-story building is expected to take up 356,000 square feet, and they are expected to finish construction in the third and fourth quarters of 2025, respectively.

QTS has not yet announced the size of two other expansions under consideration for Richmond II, the DC7 and DC8. If approved, these projects could begin construction as early as this summer. Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Industrial Manufacturing Plant and Project databases can learn more from a detailed plant profile and project reports for DC5, DC6, DC7 and DC8.

Other Blackstone facilities set for significant expansions include its data center complex in Irving, Texas, which caters to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) (Redmond, Washington). Toward the end of 2025, Blackstone expects to finish a $50 million renovation of its DC3 building and the $275 million construction of the DC4 building; the company also is at work on the $275 million DC5 and $275 million DC6, which currently are set to finish construction in the second half of 2026.

In December, Irving's City Council granted QTS and Microsoft approval to build further additions to the campus in the coming years. Subscribers can learn more from detailed reports on the DC3, DC4, DC5 and DC6 projects in Irving.

Ken Caplan, the global co-head of Real Estate at Blackstone, said in a blog post that "in recent years, total data generation [worldwide] has been doubling every three years." Earlier this month, Blackstone announced it had invested $300 million in DataDirect Networks (DDN) (Chatsworth, California), a data company specializing in AI. According to its website, DDN powers more than 500,000 graphics processing units (GPU) globally for NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) (Santa Clara, California).

Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Project and Plant databases can click here for a full list of detailed reports for projects mentioned in this article, and click here for a full list of related plant profiles.

Subscribers can click here for a full list of detailed reports for active and proposed data center projects across the U.S. from Blackstone.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).