Brookfield Is Raising $10 Billion for New AI Infrastructure Fund
Investors include Nvidia and the Kuwait Investment Authority
Brookfield Asset Management is launching a new strategy aimed at investing in infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence, executives told The Wall Street Journal.
Chip maker Nvidia NVDA -2.81%decrease; red down pointing triangle and sovereign-wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority plan to invest in the firm’s inaugural fund as founding partners.
The details
Brookfield is targeting $10 billion in equity for its new AI infrastructure fund and has already raised $5 billion of that from investors including Nvidia, KIA and Brookfield’s own balance sheet.
The Canadian investment firm said it plans to use that money, plus additional co-investments and debt, to build and acquire as much as $100 billion worth of AI infrastructure.
Brookfield will invest across the AI landscape, including in data centers, dedicated power providers and semiconductor manufacturing. It plans to devote a majority of its capital to projects that involve building from scratch on undeveloped land.
The new fund has already made a few investments. It signed a $5 billion partnership in October with Bloom Energy to install power in data centers. Brookfield also has partnerships with the governments of France and Sweden to create dedicated, secure AI infrastructure for those countries.
The context
Brookfield, which manages over $1 trillion in assets, is already the world’s biggest infrastructure investor. It has invested over $100 billion in digital infrastructure globally.
The firm estimates it will cost $7 trillion to build the infrastructure needed to power AI over the next decade. Like many of its peers, Brookfield wants to play a major role in financing that.
Firms such as Blue Owl Capital have been particularly aggressive, financing massive data centers costing tens of billions of dollars for the likes of Meta Platforms and Oracle.
Brookfield hopes the new AI infrastructure play will be as successful at attracting investor money as its energy transition strategy. Launched in 2022, it focuses on investing in decarbonizing heavy industry and developing sources of clean energy—areas where the firm had previously invested but didn’t have a stand-alone strategy. Brookfield recently announced the close of its second energy transition fund, a $20 billion vehicle.
Not everyone is quite so optimistic about AI. The Brookfield announcement comes after multiple days of stock-market declines driven by worries of an AI bubble.
Chip maker Nvidia has been both a major beneficiary of the AI boom and a major investor. It previously agreed to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, which in turn is looking to buy its specialized chips. Earlier this week, Nvidia and Microsoft agreed to invest up to $15 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic.
Nvidia’s shares have sagged a bit recently and its earnings expected Wednesday are likely to be closely watched as an AI bellwether.
Meanwhile, major sovereign-wealth funds including the Kuwait Investment Authority have been pouring money into AI investments. KIA was an anchor investor in an AI partnership founded by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, Microsoft and Nvidia.
President Trump is hosting leaders from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere this week and is expected to tout a multibillion-dollar investment in U.S. artificial-intelligence infrastructure.