KKR Rolls Infrastructure and Real Estate Into Single Division With Focus on AI

Global investment firm KKR (KKR) is combining its management of infrastructure and real estate assets under one leader.

Raj Agrawal, global head of infrastructure, will add the corporation’s real estate holdings to his purview, as the current global head of real estate, Ralph Rosenberg, becomes KKR’s chairman, Bloomberg first reported. 

The shakeup is indicative of the growing convergence between infrastructure and real estate with the demand for data center space growing following the advent of artificial intelligence. Agrawal will particularly target anything related to logistics or data storage, according to an investor letter reviewed by Bloomberg.

KKR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

KKR has some $624 billion in total assets under management, with about $80 billion of that related to real estate.

KKR just announced the acquisition of Dawsongroup, a 90-year-old U.K.-based leasing platform with 1,150 employees across 11 countries. Dawsongroup owns a large fleet of logistics vehicles, including refrigerated boxes.

And it has been socking away money in data center investments for some time now, having bought out CyrusOne, a major data center real estate investment trust, with Global Infrastructure Partners in 2021 for a staggering $15 billion in cash.

KKR isn’t the only company noticing the need for data centers thanks to AI. President Donald Trump, on his second day in office, announced a $500 billion fund to build infrastructure to support AI which will be led by ChatGPT‘s OpenAI, SoftBank (SFTBY) and Oracle. 

The joint venture will be known as Stargate and is believed to have the potential to create 100,000 jobs across the U.S.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.