Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid, is actually a "super big winner in AI".

Florentino Pérez, known as the "Old Buddha" by Chinese football fans, is widely regarded as the most successful president in the history of European football giant Real Madrid. Despite a series of setbacks recently due to poor performance and dressing - room feuds, this "Best European Football Club of the 20th Century" remains the European club with the most Champions League titles.

However, outside Spain, few people know that the 79 - year - old "Old Buddha" is also the founder, chairman, and largest shareholder of a construction company, ACS SA, which has now become one of the biggest winners in the artificial intelligence boom.

Thanks to a contract with Meta, ACS SA will assist in building one of the world's largest data centers in Indiana, USA. The project covers an area large enough to swallow up most of Manhattan. In addition, the company has also reached a $2 billion cooperation agreement with BlackRock on a similar project. These positive news have jointly pushed up the stock price of ACS SA.

This has also greatly increased Florentino's wealth. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his 14% stake in ACS has brought his net worth to $6.6 billion, enabling him to enter the list of the world's top 500 richest people for the first time.

Riding on the Wave of AI

ACS owns the engineering company Turner Construction Co., a leading data center builder in the United States. This allows ACS to take a front - row seat in the frenzy of building AI infrastructure. As the market gradually weeds out the false and retains the true in the AI bubble, ACS's role as a data center infrastructure provider is further consolidating its position.

The company has joined hands with European rivals such as Bouygues of France and Skanska of Sweden to explore the huge business opportunities in the digital infrastructure market. The market is valued at approximately $439 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow to $1.38 trillion by 2030, more than tripling.

"We believe that the world is on the verge of a new wave of infrastructure reconstruction, similar to the situation in the 1970s and 1980s," said Juan Santamaría, CEO of ACS, in an interview. "This is a real opportunity."

Since being personally selected by Florentino for the position in 2022, Santamaría has never been interviewed by the outside world before. However, he has played a key role in the rapid rise of ACS.

Florentino has been in charge of Real Madrid since 2000 (except for a three - year interruption). He has a long - standing successful record in talent scouting. He has transformed the football club into one of the most valuable brands in the sports world. Although Real Madrid lost in the Champions League quarter - finals in April this year and missed the La Liga title this month, the septuagenarian remains the most successful president in the club's history, with Real Madrid winning 37 championships during his tenure.

And at the ACS Group, Florentino's persistent pursuit of performance is exactly the same as his attitude on the football field.

According to several people familiar with the group's management, the business magnate accurately identified the then - 40 - year - old civil engineer Santamaría, who had spent most of his time working in ACS's overseas branches. In the eyes of the management, Florentino chose him for his tough - handed approach to breaking down barriers and restructuring the previously fragmented multinational segments into a modern global matrix. This transformation has directly reshaped this old - school industrial enterprise into a high - growth technology stock.

"Normally, it's difficult to find many growth opportunities in the infrastructure sector, but ACS offers growth opportunities among its peers, especially with the rise of the data center boom," said Robert Yan, a portfolio manager at High Street Asset Management, which holds ACS shares.

For years, the multinational giant ACS has remained away from the hustle and bustle and the spotlight of Silicon Valley, maintaining a calm and even old - fashioned stance. The average age of its board of directors ranks among the top in the Stoxx 600 Index, which has long made the company content to be a stable regional infrastructure player.

This low - key attitude once severely limited the company's imagination in the capital market. In the nearly ten years before 2022, the company's stock price was stagnant, hovering between 20 and 40 euros for a long time. However, since 2022, catalyzed by the AI wave, the company's stock price has skyrocketed by more than five times in just a few years and hit a new historical high of over 140 euros earlier this month.

The Transforming Infrastructure Empire

Santamaría's mission at ACS is clear: to integrate the operations of its series of local companies - from mining management and engineering in Australia, waste management in Spain, to toll roads in the United States - to make it a truly global player.

Shortly after his appointment, Santamaría gathered executives from around the world in Essen, Germany, to identify a set of vertical fields with growth potential. He set his sights on digitalization, defense, energy, and the extraction of critical minerals.

In addition to data centers, the company's ongoing technology projects include building semiconductor factories in the United States. It is also involved in the construction of small nuclear power plants and participated in Vulcan, the largest lithium development project in Europe. This has brought large - scale customers like Rolls - Royce and Hitachi to the company.

Graham Hunt, an analyst at Jefferies, said: "ACS is in the right place at the right time. The performance of this stock has far outpaced others. While this is common in the field of artificial intelligence, it is very rare in the infrastructure sector."

The group began to transform, entering new markets and establishing international supply chains and inventories of critical materials. It has expanded its business scope and won customers that were previously outside its business scope. For example, in its business with Rolls - Royce, ACS not only won construction contracts but also contracts for the renovation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. "We must enhance our construction capabilities with engineering capabilities so that we can contribute across the value chain," said Santamaría.

The full - scale outbreak of the global digitalization wave, the defense arms race triggered by geopolitical conflicts, and the global extreme thirst for clean energy together fuel ACS's super money - printing machine. Its revenue soared from 27.8 billion euros in 2021 to nearly 49.9 billion euros last year. After tasting the sweet fruits of data center construction, ACS is ambitiously moving towards the heavy - asset operation model of "development + holding" - replicating its profitable formula in the traditional franchise field.

Looking back to the early 1980s, when the engineer - turned Florentino took off his civil servant uniform and bought that small, nearly bankrupt construction factory, no one could have foreseen today's vast business map. Although he was obsessed with politics throughout his life but never achieved his goal, this shrewd businessman devoured one struggling peer after another in the following years, finally piecing together the now - astonishingly valuable ACS Group.

As the soul and "leader" of ACS, Florentino still deeply controls the daily operations of this business empire and even regularly presides over the weekly high - level management meetings.

"Every day, I am both steering Real Madrid and running a world - leading enterprise with an annual revenue of up to 50 billion euros," said the meritorious president of Real Madrid at a press conference this month. Facing the noise about his resignation due to the team's poor performance this season, he preemptively quashed all delusions of someone taking his power over the team with a tough and domineering response.

At ACS, Florentino is not only a strategist planning behind the scenes but also a mastermind who has perfectly extended the tentacles of traditional infrastructure to the technological forefront. As the global demand for AI computing power continues to skyrocket, this colossus he created is carrying his unparalleled business ambition and speeding towards the next peak on the digital technology track beyond the football field.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Caixinlian AI Daily". Author: Xiaoxiang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.