Faced with the increase in requirement for calculation infrastructure, companies and investment funds come together to mobilize tens of billions of dollars and accelerate the deployment of specialized centers.
Nvidia and Xai, Elon Musk’s start-up, join an AI-dedicated investment fund and supported by Microsoft, Blackrock and MGX. This consortium, called AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), aims to finance the construction of infrastructure to meet the growing needs of artificial intelligence.
A fund dedicated to IA infrastructure
AI Infrastructure Partnership was created in September 2024 by Microsoft, BlackRock and MGX, with an initial investment target of $ 30 billion. The ambition of the consortium is to mobilize up to $ 100 billion, by combining direct investments and loan funding, according to Reuters. The arrival of Nvidia and Xai in the project marks a new expansion phase.
The initiative is part of a context of a sharp increase in calculation capacity needs and in energy infrastructure for AI. The development and training of artificial intelligence models require significant IT resources, with growing demand in specialized data centers and adapted energy solutions.
The fund is supported by BlackRock Global Infrastructure Partners, an entity of the asset manager, as well as by Ge Vernova and Nextera Energy. These two companies will bring their expertise in management of the supply chain and the development of high -efficiency energy solutions to supply intensive calculation infrastructure.
Strong growth energy demand
Data centers hosting artificial intelligence models require significant energy resources. The International Energy Agency estimates that the electrical consumption of data centers could exceed 1,000 terawatt hours by 2026, more than double 2022, according to Financial Times.
AI Infrastructure Partnership is added to the initiatives already in place to deal with this request. In January 2025, SoftBank and Openai launched their own project, called Stargate, with a financing target of $ 500 billion. Microsoft, involved in both initiatives, has changed its agreement with OPENAI so that the company can use other cloud service providers.
Elon Musk announced that XAI planned to deploy more than a million GPU, necessary for the training of its models, and that a first infrastructure with more than 100,000 Nvidia chips was already in place. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said that the development of IA infrastructure was essential to support economic growth and respond to global challenges.
Microsoft, for its part, plans to invest $ 80 billion in 2025 to extend its capacities in data centers and IA infrastructure.
