Symbolic imageBond investors cannot price roughly $70bn of opaque credit guarantees behind the data-centre boom, Bloomberg reports, after Nvidia scaled back its planned $250bn backstop for OpenAI. Individual projects still stall on power, a subpoena and local opposition.
Training and operating artificial intelligence requires data centres on a scale that outstrips what individual tech companies fund alone, so chip suppliers and financial institutions are channelling outside investor money into the buildout. Nvidia, by far the leading supplier of the chip systems these centres run on, is at the centre of the effort.
Bloomberg reports that bond investors are struggling to price roughly $70bn of opaque credit guarantees behind AI companies. Such backstops make up a growing share of the debt financing the data-centre boom.
Bloomberg reports that a gas pipeline for a proposed Oracle data centre has been delayed to 2027, that EdgeConneX is seeking a $2.5 billion bank pledge for power, and that Fermi has received a US subpoena tied to Project Matador. In an opinion piece for Le Monde, Seine-Saint-Denis council president Stéphane Troussel wrote that the unplanned spread of data centres in France resembles the Wild West more than a digital El Dorado, after a building permit for a project in Le Bourget was withdrawn.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Nvidia has downsized plans to guarantee $250bn of OpenAI data-centre spending. Its wider $500bn build-out is meanwhile drawing Wall Street deeper into the AI trade.
Bloomberg reports that a Jane Street lease is backing $2.25 billion of green data-centre bonds, that Microsoft has cut its purchases of carbon removals by 80 percent amid its AI push, and that parts of Texas are cooling on new sites. The Wall Street Journal reports that Rick Perry's Fermi has found a customer for its Texas power project, while Meta said on Wednesday it had entered a national partnership with North America's Building Trades Unions tying its data-centre construction to unionised labour.
Bank of America will deploy $250bn into AI and energy infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Results from Cisco, Foxconn and Tencent showed the spending's reach and cost.
Nvidia and six Wall Street firms are assembling at least $500bn for AI data centres. Insurers and power forecasters are testing what the buildout can carry.
Nvidia and Wall Street firms are assembling at least $500bn for AI infrastructure. The push was announced on Monday, alongside further data-centre deals.