Abu Dhabi’s MGX weighs multi-billion deal for Singapore-based data centre operator DayOne: sources

BlackRock-backed consortium including Abu Dhabi’s MGX and the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership committed $5bn to expand Aligned Data Centres after closing its acquisition. Aligned was bought from Macquarie Asset Management and co-investors at a $40bn enterprise value. Aligned operates 51 campuses and 6.4GW capacity, with HQ in Dallas.

Reuters reports a BlackRock-backed consortium with Abu Dhabi’s MGX committed an additional $5 billion of growth capital to Aligned Data Centers after closing its $40 billion acquisition. The group, buying from Macquarie Asset Management, plans $30 billion of equity initially, potentially up to $100 billion including debt, to expand AI computing capacity.

U.S. upstream M&A slowed to $9.1B in Q2 as crude price volatility eased, though Enverus expects acceleration in H2 2026. Deal highlights include Magnolia Oil & Gas buying WildFire Energy for about $4.06B, Crescent Energy acquiring Vital Energy for ~$3.1B and Eagle Ford assets for $905M, and Baytex selling Eagle Ford assets for $2.14B.

AMD agreed to acquire Toronto startup Taalas, which designs model-specific AI chips that etch neural network weights into transistors to avoid weight transfers during inference. Taalas’ first test chip reportedly ran Meta’s Llama 3.1 8B at 16,960 tokens per second. Closing is expected in Q4, with chips planned for AMD Helios racks using ROCm.

AMD confirmed it will buy Toronto AI inference chip startup Taalas, subject to regulatory approval, to integrate Taalas technology into its accelerator roadmap and pair it with Instinct GPUs. AMD reported Q2 revenue of $11.5B (+50% YoY), data center $6.7B (+107%), and adjusted EPS $1.66 (+246%).

AkzoNobel and Axalta Coating Systems said shareholders approved their merger, which will remove the AkzoNobel name and Amsterdam listing. A new name is not set. Regulatory clearance is still needed, with closing expected by year end or early next year. The combined firm will be Dutch-structured with dual HQs in Amsterdam and Philadelphia, led by AkzoNobel CEO Greg Poux-Guillaume. AkzoNobel shareholders get 55%, Axalta 45%, with projected €519m annual cost savings and nearly €15bn revenue.