** Shares of data center firms rise on Weds after an investor group, including BlackRock BLK.N and Nvidia NVDA.O, said they will buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management MQG.AX in $40 bln AI infrastructure deal

** Investment consortium called the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) has an initial target of deploying $30 bln of equity capital, and includes xAI and Microsoft MSFT.O along with the Kuwait Investment Authority and Singapore's state-owned investor Temasek as anchor investors

** Data center operators Digital Realty DLR.N up 2.4%, Equinix EQIX.O up 1%, Iron Mountain IRM.N up 3%, Core Scientific CORZ.O up 4.3% on Weds

** High-flyer Applied Digital APLD.O jumps 12% on the session and now up >400% YTD; cloud computing firm CoreWeave CRWV.O, which has expanded leases with APLD, up nearly 5%

** Vertiv Holdings VRT.N, which designs and builds data center infrastructure, gains 3%

(Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)

((lance.tupper@tr.com 1-646-279-6380))