Google has agreed to buy Intersect, a data center and energy developer, for $4.75 billion, the tech giant said on Monday, as it pushes to build out its infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
The all-cash deal is set to help Google bolster the supply of power to its data centers, the giant computing facilities that power A.I. Intersect, a privately held company that operates data centers and energy plants and is based in San Francisco, had already been working with Google to build the computing sites, and Google had invested in the company last December.
“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lock step with new data center load and reimagine energy solutions to drive U.S. innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, said in a statement.
Intersect did not respond to a request for comment.
Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI have committed billions of dollars to building data centers worldwide in a frenzied race to dominate A.I. Many of the companies have created new financial arrangements to fund the construction, including by having smaller firms take on debt to pay for the projects and keep the investments off their balance sheets.
An outright acquisition of a data center or energy company has been rare. For years, Google was under regulatory scrutiny over whether it was illegally maintaining monopolies in areas such as internet search, which appeared to dampen its mergers-and-acquisitions activity. But while the company was found to have violated antitrust laws in recent years, the penalties have been relatively light.
In the statement on Monday, Google said it would acquire some of Intersect’s employees, data center projects and multiple gigawatts of its energy capacity. Intersect will continue operating as an independent company and retain its data centers in Texas and California that its other customers use.
Google said the deal would particularly help speed the build-out of its A.I. infrastructure in Haskell, Texas, where it is investing $40 billion through 2027.
Eli Tan covers the technology industry for The Times from San Francisco.
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