Data centers power Blackstone's $1.3 trillion investment empire

• Data centers have become key drivers of $1.3 trillion private equity giant Blackstone's growth.
• QTS, the data center provider the firm took private in 2021, was the largest single driver of returns.
• Blackstone plans to lean further into digital infrastructure and private credit.

Data center investments have become the engine of Blackstone's growth.

The Wall Street investment giant reported that QTS, the data center developer and operator it took private in 2021, was the single largest driver of gains in the company's $1.3 trillion portfolio in 2025. The results were a clear sign that Blackstone's bets on digital infrastructure amid the artificial intelligence boom have reaped returns as other segments of its business, including real estate and private credit, have run into headwinds.

In a call on Wednesday to discuss Blackstone's year-end performance, Stephen Schwarzman, the firm's co-founder and chairman, called QTS now "the world's largest data center platform."

Jon Gray, the company's president, said that investor interest in AI was a chief driver of strong inflows. The company reported $239 billion of inflows for the year, its highest total since a record year in 2021.

"You have what's happening in the AI world, economy growing faster, productivity picking up, and us investing in sectors we really like," Gray said. "We think that will really get this flywheel going, which is why you hear this optimism."

Gray said its bets on AI and data centers had delivered for the company. Its infrastructure platform — powered by data center appreciation — had grown 40% during the year to $77 billion and had raised $4 billion from investors in the fourth quarter. Infrastructure investments earned 8.4% returns for the quarter and 23.5% for the year.

Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, the firm's $54 billion retail focused real estate investment fund, meanwhile, generated 8.1% returns during the year, more than double its benchmark for the sector. The fund, which is known as BREIT, is heavily invested in QTS.

Real estate investments, broadly, were the weakest segment for Blackstone, delivering a 0.6% loss for its opportunistic strategy and 3% gains for its core assets.

QTS, which Blackstone originally bought for $10 billion, was the "largest single driver of returns" for its infrastructure strategy, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, as well as in real estate," Gray said.

Schwarzman said the firm would continue to "lean into key thematic areas such as digital infrastructure, including data centers, power, and electrification, private credit," as part of its broader investment strategy.

"The historic pace of investment taking place in the US to facilitate the development of artificial intelligence, including the design and manufacture of semiconductors, data center construction, and the expansion of power generation, is the key driver of economic growth today," Schwarzman said.

Gray added that the firm's $319 billion real estate platform would "continue to invest in AI infrastructure and data centers."

In private lending, Gray said the artificial intelligence race and the hundreds of billions of dollars in related spending it will require would also feed the company's private credit business.

"The build-out of AI infrastructure requires a massive amount of private debt capital for the construction of fabs, energy supply, and data centers," Gray said. Fabs refer to computer chip manufacturing facilities.

Gray reported that Blackstone's private credit portfolio now totaled $130 billion, an increase of 30% during the year, while also acknowledging that BCRED, one of its largest credit fund had an "uptick in redemptions" tied to industry-wide concerns about default risks.

Blackstone has long touted its focus on data centers.

In addition to QTS, the firm has invested in the AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI, the storage and high performance computing provider DDN, as well as energy providers who will deliver the prodigious electricity needed for AI computing. Last year, the firm, for instance, announced its $11.5 billion acquisition of TXNM Energy, a utility holding company. In 2024, the company was part of a group of investors that provided the data center operator CoreWeave with a $7.5 billion loan.

Blackstone reported $14.5 billion of revenue for the year and $4.4 billion for the quarter, up 9% and 42% respectively.