Blackstone Projects Seven Gigawatts of Data-Center Leasing in 2026

Blackstone projects seven gigawatts of data-center leasing across its global platforms in 2026, about 3.5 times the 2025 level as the firm expands into AI computing and enterprise services.

The estimate combines leases signed through June 30 with expected leasing for the rest of the year. Future leases are not assured, and some of the remaining volume still needs to be secured. The projects are tied to more than $100 billion in data-center capital spending and more than $200 billion in chip demand over the next several years.

Blackstone’s later estimate is higher than the six-gigawatt 2026 forecast Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Jon Gray gave in May. At June 30, the firm’s data-center platform had a total value of $185 billion, including facilities under construction, versus $130 billion at the start of the year. Blackstone’s assets under management totaled $1.3463 trillion as of June 30. The projection follows the firm’s broader data-center expansion.

NVIDIA announced memorandums of understanding with Blackstone and five other financial firms — Apollo, BlackRock, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR — to establish independent financing platforms for AI infrastructure. The six financial partners aim to mobilize more than $500 billion in third-party capital over time. That is a collective target, not a Blackstone-specific commitment.

Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs announced plans for a services firm to help companies integrate Claude into core business operations. Anthropic engineers are expected to work with the new firm’s team on deployments.

In Japan, Gray outlined plans for $30 billion in data-center development over three to five years, with projects exceeding one gigawatt still under discussion. Gray has also acknowledged overbuilding as a risk and described AI infrastructure as a “generational opportunity to invest capital at scale building AI infrastructure.”

Blackstone committed an initial $5 billion in equity to a new U.S. venture with Google. Google will supply Tensor Processing Units, software and services, and the venture expects its first 500 megawatts of capacity to come online in 2027.