An investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft and Nvidia is buying one of the world's biggest data center operators with nearly 80 facilities in a deal worth $40 billion to secure coveted computing capacity for artificial intelligence. The purchase of U.S.-based Aligned Data Centers from Australian Macquarie Asset Management on Wednesday is the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed last year which includes Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX and Elon Musk's startup

Ukraine will need between $12 billion and $20 billion worth of military aid next year as part of a new NATO initiative to purchase U.S. weapons, Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Wednesday. Speaking at a defence summit in Brussels, he added that Ukraine is capable of producing 10 million drones in 2026 with sufficient financing from allies, but that it also needs more long-range artillery shells as it fights Russian forces. Learn More

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday insisted that Washington did not want to escalate a trade conflict with China, stressing that President Donald Trump is ready to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month. Officials from both countries were in touch daily to set up the meeting, and Washington did not want to decouple from the second-largest economy in the world. Learn More