Meta-backed Ohio data center seeks $3b in bank loans

Banks including Natixis, MUFG, and SocGen have begun syndicating US$3 billion in loans for Meta-backed data center and power assets in New Albany, Ohio, as the company expands infrastructure for AI.

The financing includes two construction loans totaling US$3 billion.

The 1-gigawatt Prometheus site is expected to come online this year, a data center operator acquired by EQT Infrastructure, will run the project.

The banks aim to finish marketing the debt by April 16, after Meta last year sold US$30 billion of investment-grade bonds and agreed to a separate US$29 billion private capital deal for another data center in Louisiana.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

This loan’s real story is the bundled power plant

An early example of one loan covering a data center plus its on-site power plant 1.
Electricity limits now slow AI data center construction. Some developers build their own generation instead of relying only on grid hookups 2.
The Prometheus project plans to start in “island mode.” It will run on its own natural gas plant, separate from the grid, with an option to connect later 1.
Wrapping both assets into one package raises underwriting difficulty plus risk. The loan prices near 2.5 percentage points above the benchmark rate 3.

This deal is a piece of a much larger, opaque financing boom

Part of an AI infrastructure buildout that could need US$5.2 trillion in investment by the end of the decade 4.
Some tech companies move borrowing off the balance sheet. Meta’s Hyperion data center project in Louisiana used a joint venture that was 80% owned by funds managed by Blue Owl Capital, a private credit investment firm. The venture financed the campus, while Meta entered operating lease agreements to use the facilities 5.
Private credit tied to AI data centers has grown fast. Morgan Stanley expects another US$800 billion in data center financing over the next two years 4.
A venture capitalist called the surge “speculative finance.” U.S. senators warned that trouble repaying this opaque debt could cause “destabilizing losses for an interconnected set of financial institutions” 4.