Tech companies have moved more than $120bn of data centre spending off their balance sheets using special purpose vehicles funded by Wall Street investors, adding to concerns about the financial risks of their huge bet on artificial intelligence.
Meta, Elon Musk’s xAI, Oracle and data centre operator CoreWeave have led the way on complex financing deals to shield their companies from the large borrowing needed to build AI data centres.
Financial institutions including Pimco, BlackRock, Apollo, Blue Owl Capital and US banks such as JPMorgan have supplied at least $120bn in debt and equity for these tech groups’ computing infrastructure, according to a Financial Times analysis.