Power-Ready Capacity, CFIUS Enforcement, and India’s Secondary Sale Surge

Power-Ready Capacity Is Becoming the Real Deal Asset

Riot Platforms’ reported $9.1 billion Anthropic hosting deal shows AI infrastructure transactions are now priced around power-ready, permitable capacity, not just abstract demand for compute. The agreement covers 191 MW of critical IT capacity at Riot’s Rockdale, Texas campus, with about 96 MW due by December 2027 and the full buildout by June 2028. Bloomberg and CNBC report the base term runs through June 2048, with two five-year extensions that could lift total value to roughly $16.1 billion, making speed-to-deliver infrastructure the scarce asset.

New York’s response is a warning for every deal team: the legislature passed a one-year moratorium on state permits for new large data centers at 20 MW+, and Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order temporarily blocking state permits for projects using 50 MW+. Bloomberg-linked reporting says more than half of planned 2026 data center projects may face delays from permitting, zoning, power procurement, and equipment shortages.

For practitioners, diligence now has to start with utility interconnects, zoning, environmental review, water and energy exposure, and local political risk. If you work on these deals, speed-to-power and regulatory readiness are no longer side issues; they are core valuation drivers.

Enforcement, Not Just Screening, Is Now Driving Deal Risk

Treasury’s final CFIUS enforcement rules raised the cost of getting jurisdictional calls wrong by expanding information requests, increasing subpoena use for non-notified transactions, and increasing civil-penalty exposure. At the same time, the White House’s America First Investment Policy sharpened scrutiny of foreign-adversary access to sensitive technologies, including biotech and other emerging or foundational sectors, while the FCC widened restrictions on Chinese drone firms. The practical shift is not just more screening; it is more enforcement leverage after a deal is identified, especially for defense, dual-use, contractor-heavy, and data-rich targets.

That pushes feasibility further upstream than last week’s ownership-threshold and sanctions checks. China’s reported blocking of the Meta-Manus deal shows that approval risk can attach even to a Singapore-based target when Beijing sees strategic Chinese technology, talent, or data links. Spain’s decision to advance a Chinese factory project despite warnings shows the other side of the same pattern: governments are routing deals through industrial-policy channels and negotiated review paths, not simply approving or rejecting them.

For Corporate Development teams, ownership tracing, data and dual-use mapping, and approval-path modeling now shape target selection, structure, and valuation before outreach. The teams that can translate geopolitical constraints into executable deal architecture will improve pipeline quality and close probability.

Secondary Sales Are Now Outpacing IPOs in India’s Exit Mix

Indian PE exits this week tilted sharply to secondary routes: KKR sold its full 27% stake in Max Healthcare, Blackstone sold Sona BLW shares, Peak XV exited Sirion to Haveli Investments, Premji Invest and TPG NewQuest sold iD Fresh Food stakes to Apax, and Eight Roads reportedly sold MoEngage, Whatfix, and Shadowfax stakes to TR Capital. Mint also reported more than $2 billion of August block trades, underscoring how listed-market monetization is scaling alongside sponsor-to-sponsor sales. EY logged $1.0 billion of secondary exits across 19 deals in 1H2026 versus a 47% drop in IPO exits to $801 million, so the exit market is now showing the same disclosure and process discipline from last week, but with a broader shift in where liquidity is actually clearing. For corporate development and M&A teams, that means PE ownership tracking and block-trade monitoring now belong in core sourcing workflows for teams that need to move fast on sponsor-run processes, because the next actionable opportunity is increasingly likely to surface in a secondary sale rather than a public listing.