Sterlington Advises Management Team of Aligned Data Centers on Completion of its Landmark US$40 Billion Transaction

This is less about one asset changing hands and more about the clearing price for scarce, power-constrained digital infrastructure. A $40B mark implies that private capital is still willing to pay up for contracts, land, and interconnect rights, which should support valuation multiples for the public owners of similar “picks and shovels” capacity, especially data-center REITs and electrical bottleneck names like DLR, EQIX, VRT, ANET, ETN, and NVT.

The second-order effect is tighter economics for everyone trying to scale compute: the higher the replacement value of powered shells, the more bargaining power shifts to landlords and equipment vendors, not tenants. That is bullish for backlog visibility, but it also raises the hurdle for hyperscalers and colo customers, who may respond by pushing more in-house build, delaying marginal leases, or demanding shorter commitments if AI utilization does not keep up.

The near-term catalyst is a sentiment rerate in the public comps; the medium-term catalyst is whether financing and power delivery can support the implied valuation. If debt spreads widen, utility interconnects slip, or quarterly booked MW fail to accelerate, the private-market signal will quickly look like a peak-price print rather than a durable comp set. The contrarian point is that a record headline can just as easily reflect scarcity and abundant capital as it can underlying earnings power; if AI demand normalizes, the multiple expansion can reverse faster than the assets depreciate.