KKR, a global investment firm, and Energy Capital Partners (ECP), a private owner of power generation and renewables in the U.S., formed a $50 billion strategic partnership. The collaboration aims to accelerate the development of data center and power generation and transmission infrastructure for the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing globally. This strategic partnership combines KKR’s deep expertise in digital infrastructure, power, and the energy value chain with ECP’s premier energy transition platform in electrification and power and renewable generation.
“Data center power demand is expected to grow by 160% by 2030, a demand that will go unmet without the right infrastructure in place, which is critical to boosting productivity, supporting electrification and helping countries create a competitive edge in AI,” Joe Bae, co-CEO of KKR, said. “At the same time, the scaling of this mission-critical infrastructure must be done affordably, reliably and sustainably, while addressing the needs of all stakeholders, from technology companies to end consumers.”
“In order for the U.S. to maintain its advantage in AI, we will need massive new investments in power infrastructure on an accelerated basis that are capable of addressing concerns related to electricity prices and carbon emissions,” Doug Kimmelman, founder and senior partner of ECP, said. “We are committed to delivering solutions for our strategic partners and our investors through ECP’s strong utility relationships and expertise investing across a wide variety of power generation, renewable and battery storage assets.”
“Building out AI and power infrastructure will require collaboration across industries. KKR and ECP’s strategic partnership offers a new approach, with immediately available capital and the capabilities needed to deploy that capital to accelerate this effort,” Waldemar Szlezak, partner and global head of digital infrastructure for KKR, said. “With our combined footprint and capabilities, we have a more than 8 GW existing datacenter pipeline, 100 GW of currently operating and development-ready power generation and significant experience working with stakeholders across both industries to help realize this opportunity quickly and responsibly.”
“The ECP and KKR teams have decades of experience working with constituents to bring infrastructure projects to completion on time and on budget,” Tyler Reeder, managing partner, of ECP, said. “This experience, along with ECP’s existing power and renewable asset base, history of decarbonizing existing assets through carbon capture and asset repowering, as well as KKR’s leading digital practice, provide our partners a clear path to delivering much needed computing capacity through a sustainable lens.”
The strategic partnership is designed to deliver scaled data center and power solutions for hyperscalers and other market participants to support their infrastructure needs across geographies to drive model training, tuning and inferencing at scale. KKR and ECP plan to engage with industry leaders including utilities, power and data center developers and independent power producers to accelerate the delivery of data center campuses required by hyperscalers.
“To develop a winning solution to support the growth of AI in the U.S., you need world-class capabilities along every step of the value chain, including power generation, transition and deployment within data centers to serve hyperscalers and other market participants,” Neil Chatterjee, former FERC chairman, senior advisor to KKR, and board member of ECP-owned convergent energy, said. “With KKR and ECP’s industry-leading solutions in data center development, power, renewables, and capital formation, this partnership is bringing to bear the best of the best to accelerate the build out of AI.”
