GoKawiilBlackstone and Wall Street push data centers into retail real estate funds
Wall Street firms, led by Blackstone, are marketing AI data centers as a real estate investment category, including a new publicly traded REIT called Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust launched this year. Blackstone CEO Nick Pell said the fund focuses on 'stabilized' data centers in established markets like Northern Virginia and Dallas, aiming to tap what the company estimates is a $300 billion market, even as community opposition and state-level moratoriums on new data center projects grow.