The Quiet Empire Builders | Control Is The New Alpha

As investors scramble for exposure to the AI boom, private equity is making its quiet fortune in the background… not in chips or models, but in the machinery that keeps intelligence alive.

Windjammer Capital’s investment in PDU Cables isn’t headline-grabbing, but it captures the next real frontier: power distribution, cooling, and connectivity. 

These aren’t speculative bets, they’re toll roads for the AI economy.

Deal flow underscores the shift. More than 150 private equity transactions in power and electrical equipment have closed globally this year, totaling $19 billion. 

Multiples have expanded sharply, often 2× traditional industrial valuations, as funds race to secure capacity in the physical layer of intelligence.

The real action sits in the middle market: suppliers with $20–40 million in EBITDA, big enough to matter, small enough to scale. 

Most are compounding organically, avoiding the roll-up arms race that’s left other sectors over-levered and fragile.

THE PLAYBOOK

Investor Signal

The best returns in the AI cycle may not come from software margins, but from metal margins. Private equity’s next decade could belong to the builders, not the coders. Control the power chain, and you don’t just feed the boom, you govern its growth rate.

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In the race to build the world’s AI infrastructure, the spotlight rarely reaches the middle of the supply chain. 

Headlines orbit the giants — trillion-dollar chipmakers, $40 billion data-center buyouts, and hyperscalers breaking ground on megaprojects.

But beneath that glare, a quieter set of private equity players is executing a different kind of land grab: owning the hardware behind the hardware…

…the conduits, cooling systems, and electrical arteries that make the AI revolution physically possible.

Windjammer Capital’s recent investment in PDU Cables is a case in point. The Minnesota-based manufacturer doesn’t build data centers; it builds the custom power-distribution units that feed them. 

Each cable routes electricity into GPU racks, an unglamorous, indispensable niche in an industry where uptime is sacred.

“There’s a lot of interest in the ancillary products that are critical to building and operating data centers,” said Robert W. Baird’s Mike Barina. “They don’t have major technology risk but are a core part of that ecosystem.”

That low-tech-risk profile is exactly the appeal. GPUs and servers age in cycles; electrical infrastructure endures for decades. 

For middle-market private equity, that means predictable growth, durable cash flow, and exit optionality not tethered to hype cycles.

And growth is organic. 

Many suppliers are doubling revenue without acquisitions, lifted by relentless power demand and the capacity boom. As Barina noted, “You don’t necessarily need an M&A strategy to be successful in that market.”

Windjammer isn’t alone. Private-equity money is cascading through every corner of the data-center ecosystem… busbars, switchgears, advanced cooling, wherever hardware meets infrastructure. 

Windjammer’s own portfolio includes AXH, a maker of air-cooled heat exchangers used in natural-gas production, a logical adjacency as power and computing increasingly converge.

In a sector dominated by trillion-dollar buyers, it’s these mid-market funds quietly shaping the battlefield… the arms dealers of digital infrastructure. 

Their edge lies not in speculation, but in steel, copper, and continuity.

Investor Signal

For allocators and operators, the signal is clear: infrastructure’s next alpha sits in the middle of the stack.

The first AI-capital wave funded chips, data centers, and hyperscalers. The next is flooding into the ecosystem that supplies and services them.

Mid-market firms in power distribution, cooling, and electrical manufacturing now offer both recurring-revenue potential and insulation from tech volatility. Two angles stand out:

The smartest capital in private markets isn’t trying to guess which AI model wins… it’s buying the factory that keeps them powered.

Bloom Energy shares surged 21% after announcing a $5 billion partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to supply clean, distributed power for a new wave of AI “factories.”

Under the deal, Bloom becomes Brookfield’s preferred power provider for its global AI infrastructure projects, deploying its fuel-cell technology that converts natural gas or hydrogen into electricity. 

The companies plan to co-develop sites worldwide, with the first European installation expected before year-end.

Analysts called the partnership a milestone… aligning energy reliability with AI expansion. 

The news caps a remarkable run for Bloom, whose stock has nearly quadrupled in 2025 as investors pile into anything that can feed the data-center power appetite. 

Brookfield’s capital will help scale Bloom’s manufacturing footprint and cement its role as a cornerstone of the AI supply chain.

Evercore raised its price target to $137, citing Bloom’s “increasing strategic relevance to compute infrastructure.” The partnership also marks Brookfield’s first move under its dedicated AI Infrastructure Strategy, effectively linking power generation directly to digital capacity.

For the broader energy transition, this deal highlights where the next wave of capital is converging: around scalable, dispatchable power. 

Traditional utilities are struggling to keep pace with AI-driven load growth, creating room for private capital and modular generation to step in.

If successful, Bloom and Brookfield could pioneer a new model for energy-backed compute — treating electrons as the most valuable commodity in the AI economy.

Investor Signal

The AI power race is entering its next phase…where energy and infrastructure merge. 

Expect more partnerships linking fuel cells, batteries, and grid assets to high-density compute hubs. The Bloom-Brookfield alliance shows capital flowing toward integrated energy systems, not speculative tech plays. 

In the hierarchy of AI, power may prove the most defensible profit center.

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Brookfield Corporation and Brookfield Asset Management will acquire the remaining 26% stake in Oaktree Capital for about $3 billion, giving the Canadian giant full control of one of the world’s most influential credit platforms.

The deal ends a six-year partnership that began in 2019 and consolidates Oaktree’s fee-related earnings, carried interest, and holdings in affiliates such as 17Capital and DoubleLine. 

With it, Brookfield strengthens its position among the largest non-bank lenders globally, joining the ranks of Apollo, Ares, and Blackstone in the race to finance corporate and real-asset borrowers.

The logic is scale. 

Oaktree brings world-class credit discipline; Brookfield adds balance-sheet firepower and an investor base eager for yield. Together they form a vertically integrated credit engine…one that spans structured credit, direct lending, and special situations.

It’s also part of a broader consolidation wave across private markets. 

As capital gravitates toward platforms with fee durability and multi-asset breadth, smaller managers are finding it harder to compete. Brookfield’s move signals that the next edge in private markets isn’t just capital, it’s control.

For Brookfield, full ownership unlocks flexibility to expand faster into direct lending and credit-adjacent infrastructure, areas that continue to absorb record institutional inflows.

Investor Signal

Private credit is becoming the new backbone of alternative finance. 

The Brookfield-Oaktree deal marks a shift toward vertical integration, where large managers internalize specialized expertise rather than partner externally. Expect more acquisitions of niche credit shops as global allocators reward scale, stability, and steady fee income over growth at the margins.

The consolidation that started in AI’s infrastructure layer is now reshaping capital itself.Paste draft copy here

The next phase of the AI boom is no longer about building… it’s about owning.

Dan Ives of Wedbush says the “AI M&A floodgates” are about to open as Big Tech and private-equity firms race to secure strategic assets. 

With regulators softening their stance and corporate balance sheets still flush, a new surge of takeovers is expected across AI infrastructure, software, and data platforms.

Ives highlights Apple and IBM as likely acquirers, with C3.ai, Sandisk, Lyft, TripAdvisor, and Qualys among the most attractive targets. 

The pattern mirrors what’s happening in private markets… capital rotating from hype to hard assets.

After two years of relentless infrastructure buildout, consolidation is the logical next chapter. 

From CoreWeave’s $9 billion purchase of Core Scientific’s data-center unit to Palo Alto Networks’ $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk, buyers are racing to capture capacity, code, and customer pipelines.

The AI economy is maturing. Expansion is giving way to control. And the “arms dealers” of this cycle… whether building chips, power systems, or software… are entering their busiest phase yet.

For middle-market investors, the same playbook applies at a different altitude. 

Private equity is stitching together the industrial backbone (power systems, cooling, electrical components) while Big Tech consolidates the digital stack, software, cybersecurity, and data routing. Each layer is converging toward the same endgame: owning the infrastructure that keeps AI running.

Investor Signal

The next alpha wave won’t come from betting on a new model, it will come from anticipating where consolidation lands next.

Watch for acceleration in infrastructure, security, and applied-AI integration as both strategics and sponsors move to lock in scarce capacity. 

The investors who map the roll-up chains will capture the compounding power of control.

The floodgates are opening. Patience, not hype, will be the edge.

The week’s center of gravity: consolidation.
Private equity is stitching together the industrial backbone of AI. Big Tech is locking up software, security, and data routing. Private credit is scaling to finance both.

Power is the choke point.
Bloom and Brookfield showed it…electrons, not algorithms, control AI’s pace. Expect copycat deals linking generation and compute. The winners will turn uptime into long-term contracts and cash flow.

Assume the buyer is coming.
Ives’s M&A call mirrors the shift across energy, data infrastructure, and software. If you’re in the path of consolidation, the exit multiple is the edge. If not, the move is to become a platform, or attach to one.

Back builders, not traders.
In private markets, that means managers with operating depth in power, cooling, and electrical systems.
In public markets, it’s owners who can underwrite accretive takeouts in cybersecurity, applied AI, and data services. Scale compounds. Integration defends.

Action steps:
Map portfolio names to likely consolidators. Secure contracted power and credit exposure. Keep dry powder for secondary buyouts and recaps.

The trade now isn’t chasing the frontier —
it’s owning the assets every frontier must rent.