The Big Take
Blackstone Is Building a $25 Billion Empire of Power-Hungry Data Centers
The private equity giant says landlord QTS could be one of its best investments ever — but the resources needed for growth are vast.
A QTS data center under construction in Phoenix.
Source: ShutterstockOff a highway in Phoenix, cranes tower over a stretch of land larger than 60 football fields. The first of five hulking bunkers are under construction.
Thirty miles away, engineers are plotting another complex on 400 acres, some three times the footprint of the Mall of America, all but erasing the land’s farming roots. If all goes as planned, both sites will be home to thousands of computers churning mountains of data, powered by the energy needed for hundreds of thousands of homes.