Data center investors buy up power developers in race to build

Data center investors are buying power developers to secure electricity supplies for new facilities. DigitalBridge announced it will buy power infrastructure developer ArcLight Capital for $1.1 billion, Reuters reported on June 22. The deal highlights a trend of power acquisitions by digital infrastructure developers in North America. ArcLight develops and acquires gas-fired, solar, wind and battery energy storage assets, focusing on late-stage projects. In July 2025, ArcLight acquired Advanced Power, a developer with 12 GW of assets under development. DigitalBridge develops and operates AI, cloud computing and telecoms infrastructure and has $119 billion in assets under management. It is part of an investment consortium that owns Vantage Data Centers. The acquisition of ArcLight is subject to the planned $4 billion takeover of DigitalBridge by Japanese technology investor SoftBank, announced in December. Electricity demand from U.S. data centers will rise from 31 GW in 2025 to 66 GW in 2027, Goldman Sachs said in a research note in May 2026. Rising energy demand and delays to new power generation have pushed up the price of long-term electricity contracts, impacting the profitability of data center operations.