A consortium of 20 lenders has assembled an estimated $18 billion project finance package to support development of a data center campus connected to Oracle Corp., adding another financing effort to support artificial intelligence infrastructure boom.
Reports suggest that Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, BNP Paribas SA, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are acting as administrative agents. After coordinating the initial structure, these banks have invited additional participants and are preparing a broader retail syndication, with commitments scheduled for late November.
The Oracle data center planned for Doña Ana County, New Mexico forms part of the Stargate project, an initiative led by OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp., and Oracle aimed at deploying $500 billion toward AI build-outs across the US. Oracle is expected to occupy the New Mexico facilities, the people said, while Blue Owl Capital Inc. is supplying equity to the deal.
BorderPlex Digital Assets, based in Austin, is managing the development in collaboration with STACK Infrastructure, a Blue Owl-owned operator responsible for constructing the buildings. Pricing discussions are centered around 2.5 percentage points above the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, with a four-year maturity and two potential 12-month extensions, reports said.
The loan mirrors another major financing effort: banks are arranging a $38 billion, two-tranche package to support Oracle data center construction in Texas and Wisconsin, both being developed by Vantage Data Centers for Oracle to power OpenAI.
Across the sector, issuers have increasingly tapped multiple debt channels to meet the escalating demand for AI-ready infrastructure. Alongside traditional project-finance structures, funding has recently flowed through investment-grade bonds, high-yield bonds and private-credit arrangements.
Recent transactions underscore the scale of activity. Meta Platforms Inc. completed a $30 billion investment-grade bond sale and reached a nearly $30 billion private-capital agreement with Blue Owl and Pacific Investment Management Co. to advance its Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Oracle also executed an $18 billion high-grade bond offering in September, while in the high-yield market TeraWulf Inc. secured $3.2 billion and Cipher Mining Inc. raised $1.4 billion for data center construction.
The New Mexico development has drawn robust public-sector backing: commissioners in Doña Ana County have approved a $165 billion industrial revenue bond package along with broad tax incentives to support the expansive AI data center project, positioning it among the most significant economic initiatives in the state’s history.