Data is a high stakes game right now.
Private equity giant Blackstone Group has made a $300 million strategic investment in DDN, valuing the Chatsworth, California-based data storage company at $5 billion.
Founded in 1998, DDN (previously known as DataDirect Networks) helps companies store, analyze and manage data, a valuable commodity as they look to create and train AI models. Masu.
The company plans to use the new funding to expand into industries ranging from healthcare to self-driving cars and accelerate product innovation, including its AI data intelligence platform.
large sum of money
Of course, this isn’t Blackstone Group’s only effort in the data space. Last year, it was reported that the world’s largest asset manager planned to invest $8.2 billion in developing data centers in Spain. In 2023, it partnered with Digital Realty to develop a $7 billion data center targeting providers of online content, cloud services, and artificial intelligence.
Blackstone is also a backer of CoreWeave, an AI infrastructure startup that provides access to Nvidia’s highly popular AI chips.
In general, data centers and data storage and management are gaining attention among investors as companies of all sizes look to leverage data to scale their AI efforts.
Late last year, AustralianSuper announced it had committed $1.5 billion to become a minority shareholder in DataBank, which provides enterprise-class data centers across North America. Amazon has announced plans to invest $100 billion in AI data centers over the next 10 years, and OpenAI and Microsoft are planning a joint data center project expected to cost $100 billion.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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