Blackstone is opening a new gateway for public investors into data centers, betting that artificial intelligence and cloud computing will drive a $1 trillion market for leased-up properties within five years.
The alternative asset giant filed a preliminary registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering to launch Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust. The newly formed company plans to acquire stabilized, newly built data centers leased to investment-grade hyperscale cloud providers, commonly referred to as hyperscalers, under long-term contracts.
If completed, the offering would give public investors access to hyperscaler-backed cash flows tied to the infrastructure powering the broader digital economy at a time when demand continues to outrun supply.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust intends to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BXDC, though pricing and timing remain undetermined.
Blackstone is reportedly seeking to raise about $2 billion from the IPO, which would be among the largest hauls for a real estate investment trust, following cold storage warehouse owner Lineage's $4.2 billion in 2024.
The filing lands amid broader signs that REIT markets are thawing, according to analysts at Hoya Capital Real Estate. Janus Living, a senior health care REIT whose shares began trading last month, raised $966 million in its IPO.
"The successful listing of Janus Living shows the public markets are once again open for business," David Auerbach, chief investment officer at Hoya Capital, said in an email to CoStar News.
Blackstone did not immediately respond to CoStar News' requests for comment.
Wave of global data center activity
The timing also aligns with a global surge in data center demand driven by AI workloads.
Data center openings by six major cloud providers — Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM and Alibaba Group — rebounded in 2025, with 15 new facilities coming on line, according to S&P Global Ratings, a bond rating firm. Those six firms now operate 58 data centers in North America, with more on the way.
Meta said it opened a new facility in 2025, bringing its total in the United States to 26. While Apple did not open any new data centers in 2025, it expanded capacity across a fleet of six core locations, according to the firm.
U.S. data center vacancies have fallen to historically low levels as AI-related demand overwhelms available supply. A CoStar News analysis found vacancy tightening even as development struggles to keep pace, with power availability emerging as the most critical constraint on future growth.
Rather than pursue ground-up development, Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, according to its SEC filing, plans to focus initially on income-generating U.S. data centers already leased to investment-grade hyperscalers, thus avoiding construction and lease-up risk.
Target assets will typically feature long-term leases of 10 to 20 years, annual rent escalators of 2% to 3% and purchase prices ranging from $250 million to $1.5 billion, with capacity ranging between 20 and 100 megawatts. A single megawatt roughly equates to the electricity demand of about 700 homes over the course of a year.
Hyperscaler tenants often invest two to three times the project's original construction cost into specific equipment and network architecture, making relocation expensive, complex and operationally risky, according to the filing. That capital supports high renewal rates the REIT said have historically exceeded 90% for hyperscale data center leases.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust's strategy is not without risks. Investments will be concentrated among a small group of investment-grade hyperscaler tenants. In its filing, the REIT acknowledged that the approach could expose investors to adverse events affecting individual tenants or the broader sector.
Target markets across US
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust plans to concentrate on top-tier U.S. data center hubs where supply shortages are most acute, including Northern Virginia, the largest U.S. data center market, Ohio, Maryland, and Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas. The REIT has already reviewed about $25 billion of near-term acquisition opportunities in those markets, it said in its filing.
As of the end of 2025, U.S. data center vacancy stood at an estimated 1.3%, with Northern Virginia below 1%, according to the filing. Market rents have more than doubled over the past four years as new construction struggles to keep up with demand.
Since 2018, Blackstone has invested about $200 billion across data center and digital infrastructure transactions, including more than $130 billion in data centers and over $10 billion in sector lending, the filing said.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust will be led by Nick Pell, former president and chief investment officer of Link Logistics, alongside Mike Forman, Blackstone's global head of digital infrastructure for real estate, and Anthony Marone Jr., a longtime public REIT chief financial officer.