KKR, a prominent global investment firm, and Energy Capital Partners, the largest private owner of power generation and renewables in the United States, have announced a strategic partnership valued at $50 billion. This collaboration aims to expedite the development of data center, power generation, and transmission infrastructure to support the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and cloud computing on a global scale. By combining KKR’s extensive expertise in digital infrastructure and energy value chains with ECP’s robust energy transition platform, the partnership is poised to drive significant advancements in the sector.
The surge in AI technology has led to an unprecedented demand for data centers; however, the limited availability of reliable power sources is hindering the strategic objectives of major technology companies, enterprises, and governments seeking to implement AI solutions. Projections indicate that U.S. data center demand could nearly triple by 2030, necessitating over $1 trillion in investment. A single planned data center campus often exceeds 1 gigawatt of power demand, requiring investments of $15 billion or more for both data center and power equipment.
Joe Bae, co-chief executive officer of KKR, commented on the growing demand, stating, “Data center power demand is expected to grow by 160 percent by 2030, a demand that will go unmet without the right infrastructure in place. This infrastructure is critical for boosting productivity, supporting electrification, and helping countries gain a competitive edge in AI. At the same time, scaling this mission-critical infrastructure must be accomplished affordably, reliably, and sustainably, while addressing the needs of all stakeholders—from technology companies to end consumers.”
Doug Kimmelman, founder and senior partner at ECP, emphasized the need for substantial investments in power infrastructure to maintain the US’s competitive edge in AI. He noted, “Massive new investments on an accelerated basis are required to address concerns related to electricity prices and carbon emissions. We are committed to delivering solutions for our strategic partners and investors through ECP’s strong utility relationships and expertise across a variety of power generation, renewable, and battery storage assets.”
Waldemar Szlezak, partner and global head of digital infrastructure at KKR, highlighted the importance of collaboration across industries, stating, “The strategic partnership between KKR and ECP offers a new approach, providing immediately available capital and the capabilities needed to deploy that capital effectively. With our combined footprint and resources, we have more than an 8 GW existing data center pipeline and 100 GW of operating and development-ready power generation.”
Tyler Reeder, managing partner at ECP, added that their combined experience in bringing infrastructure projects to completion on time and on budget positions them well to support the growing demand for computing capacity sustainably.
The partnership is designed to deliver scaled data center and power solutions for hyperscale data users and other market participants, facilitating their infrastructure needs across various geographies to enhance model training, tuning, and inferencing at scale. KKR and ECP plan to collaborate with industry leaders, including utilities, power and data center developers, and independent power producers, to expedite the establishment of the necessary data center campuses.
Neil Chatterjee, former FERC chairman and senior advisor to KKR, remarked on the need for world-class capabilities throughout the value chain to support AI growth. He stated, “With KKR and ECP’s industry-leading solutions in data center development, power, renewables, and capital formation, this partnership is bringing together the best resources to accelerate the build-out of AI infrastructure.”
KKR will fund the partnership through its existing infrastructure and real estate strategies, as well as insurance accounts. ECP will finance the partnership from its current and future infrastructure capital pools.
Having established its global infrastructure team and strategy in 2008, KKR has emerged as one of the most active infrastructure investors worldwide, managing $77 billion in infrastructure assets as of September 30, 2024. To date, KKR has invested over $29 billion across 22 investments in relevant digital infrastructure companies, along with $15 billion in power, utilities, and energy. KKR’s extensive global data center footprint includes several gigawatts of deployed assets across more than 100 facilities, with additional projects in development.
Since its founding in 2005, ECP has owned and operated over 83 GW of power generation across major U.S. power markets, utilizing various technologies such as natural gas, geothermal, hydro, solar, wind, battery storage, and waste-to-energy. ECP’s team comprises 90 professionals with 800 years of collective industry experience, having completed over 100 equity transactions representing nearly $60 billion in enterprise value, predominantly in power and renewables. As the largest private owner of power and renewable generation assets in the U.S., ECP also holds a majority stake in ProEnergy, an aeroderivative power turbine platform and manufacturer, which will play a vital role in accelerating electricity delivery to data center projects.
For more information visit www.ecpgp.com
