Apollo Global Management Targets More AI Infrastructure Deals

Apollo Global Management named a new leader to head artificial intelligence-related deals, The Information reported Wednesday (Aug. 5).

Partner Reed Rayman will lead the asset management company’s chip-focused efforts, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources.

It’s part of a larger strategy to capture more digital infrastructure deals and link them with investment teams across Apollo, with Rayman concentrating on developing relationships to help Apollo oversee the financing of more big and complex AI infrastructure projects, the report said.

Apollo and other major asset managers are aiming to capture more business from the massive financing required to fund AI infrastructure build-out, per the report. Some high-profile projects are too big for standard corporate loans, requiring an array of partnerships, backstops and other arrangements to spread the risk among AI labs, chip and cloud providers, and lenders.

Apollo earlier this year arranged financing for Broadcom that will help Google deploy its custom AI chips with Anthropic as its customer, the report said.

Apollo already has a large team working on AI-centric deals, with around 60 employees focused on digital infrastructure, according to the report. Rayman is focused on sourcing deals supported by semiconductors and their lease payments, rather than financing other aspects of AI infrastructure like data centers.

Meanwhile, a new class of buyers, sometimes called AI roll-ups, is emerging across accounting, property management and customer service, PYMNTS reported Tuesday (Aug. 4).

“Unlike traditional acquirers, these companies are not buying small service businesses to cut costs or flip them for a quick return,” the report said. “They are buying them to keep the customer relationships already in place, then rebuild the actual work behind those relationships with proprietary artificial intelligence. The wager is that AI does not just make an existing business more efficient. It replaces the work itself, at a scale no individual small business could reach on its own.”

In these deals, companies are wagering “that rebuilding the production layer with AI, not just consolidating ownership, is what creates value, whether the target is a local accounting practice or a publicly traded company generating billions,” according to the report.

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