Aims. The objective of this work is to provide a substantial amount of updated at. data for the systems of neutral and singly ionized aluminum, including transition data in the IR region. This is particularly important since the new generation of telescopes are designed for this region. Methods. Multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) and relativistic CI (RCI) calculations were performed for 28 and 78 states in neutral and singly ionized aluminum, resp. In Al I, the configurations of interest are 3s2nl for n = 3, 4, 5 with l = 0 to 4, as well as 3s3p2 and 3s26l for l = 0, 1, 2. In Al II, the studied configurations are, besides the ground configuration 3s2, 3snl with n = 3 to 6 and l = 0 to 5, 3p2, 3s7s, 3s7p and 3p3d. Valence and core-valence electron correlation effects are systematically accounted for through large configuration state function (CSF) expansions. Results. Calculated excitation energies are found to be in excellent agreement with exptl. data from the NIST database. Lifetimes and transition data for radiative elec. dipole (E1) transitions are given and compared with results from previous calculations and available measurements, for both Al I and Al II. The computed lifetimes of Al I are in very good agreement with the measured lifetimes in high-precision laser spectroscopy experiments There is a significant improvement in accuracy, in particular for the more complex system of neutral Al I.