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Meta secures $30B for Louisiana AI data center

Meta finalized a nearly $30 billion financing for its Hyperion AI data center in Louisiana through a special purpose vehicle.

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By Olivia Hall

5 min read

Image Credit: Unsplash
Image Credit: Unsplash

Meta finalized a nearly thirty billion dollar financing package for its Hyperion artificial intelligence data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, completing what participants characterized as the largest private capital transaction on record for a single site.

The structure utilized a special-purpose vehicle that raised senior debt and equity, while Meta assumed the roles of developer, operator, and sole tenant under long-term agreements.

The transaction brought in major institutional lenders and infrastructure investors, including an anchor role from a leading bond manager, with additional allocations placed across a syndicate.

Investment banks arranged more than $27 billion of debt alongside approximately $2.5 billion of equity, creating a tailored capital stack aligned with construction milestones and future operational needs.

What structure financed Hyperion at record scale

The financing relied on an off-balance sheet special purpose vehicle that issued securities to fund site acquisition, construction, power infrastructure, and core mechanical and electrical systems.

By placing the obligations at the project level, the arrangement separated asset risk from the corporate parent and allowed investment grade paper to be sold to a broad base of fixed income buyers.

Equity in the vehicle was provided by Infrastructure Capital Partners, which specializes in digital assets.

At the same time, the senior debt was structured with covenants tied to project completion, tenant performance, and contracted revenue streams.

This format is becoming more common for hyperscale builds because it appeals to insurers and pension funds that seek long-duration assets with predictable cash flows.

Did you know?
Large hyperscale data centers can draw power on the scale of small cities, which necessitates long-term utility planning and multi-year grid upgrades to accommodate interconnection capacity.

Who owns Hyperion, and how is risk allocated

Ownership is split between Meta and a financial sponsor group led by a large alternative asset manager, with Meta retaining about twenty percent of the vehicle.

The sponsor group bears construction and financing exposure at the project entity. At the same time, Meta provides operational commitments through leases and service-level agreements that align incentives during both the ramp-up and steady-state phases.

This model shifts part of the capital intensity off the corporate balance sheet, yet preserves control over design, reliability, and performance.

In practice, risk allocation depends on completion guarantees, liquidated damages, and grid interconnection timelines, which are addressed through detailed contracts and contingency budgets embedded in the capital plan.

Why 144A bonds, and what did the pricing signal

The securities were issued in the 144A market to reach deep pools of qualified institutional buyers with an accelerated timeline and flexible documentation.

The bonds received an A-plus rating from a central credit rating agency, with a final maturity in 2049 and pricing at approximately 225 basis points over U.S. Treasury securities, indicating demand for long-dated digital infrastructure exposure.

Spreads reflected both construction phase risk and confidence in the tenant profile, the contracted structure, and the essential nature of compute infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.

The market reception suggested that similar projects could secure scalable capital if they offer robust covenants, transparent cost curves, and credible power procurement strategies.

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How big is Hyperion, and what will it power

Hyperion is planned as a four-million-square-foot complex with an eventual draw of up to five gigawatts at full build, comparable to the consumption of several million United States homes, depending on load factors.

The scale implies multi-generation capacity halls, extensive liquid cooling systems, and dense networking to support training clusters and large inference fleets.

Power planning encompasses long lead substation work, high-voltage interconnects, and staged energization to align with server deliveries and software readiness.

The facility will anchor Meta’s platform-wide artificial intelligence services, spanning content understanding, ranking models, generative tools, and safety systems across Facebook, Instagram, and messaging products.

What this means for the AI buildout

The financing underscored how hyperscalers are adapting capital markets techniques from energy and telecom to fund compute expansion while managing corporate leverage.

As competition for chips, power, and land intensified, project finance with investment-grade tranches emerged as a template that can be replicated in other states with strong utility partners and supportive incentives.

Recent activity across the sector hinted at rising consolidation between asset managers and operators, with headline deals in data center platforms and long-dated offtake contracts. The same week, a major consortium advanced a multibillion-dollar data center transaction.

At the same time, Meta announced a one-and-a-half-billion-dollar site in El Paso, indicating a multi-site expansion strategy for artificial intelligence capacity.

Meta positioned Hyperion as its largest facility among nearly thirty global data centers, which signaled a commitment to multi-year scaling of compute and storage.

The forward path will depend on supply chain reliability, transformer availability, grid upgrades, and permitting, yet the capital structure suggests that milestones are sequenced to absorb predictable delays and maintain funding discipline.

Grid headroom and energy procurement will remain crucial, as multi-gigawatt footprints necessitate collaboration with utilities on transmission, demand response, and potential clean energy integration.

Over time, the capital markets may reward projects that pair high utilization with lower carbon intensity, supported by credible measurement and verification frameworks that translate into tighter spreads.

The Hyperion transaction offered a template for financing computing at a national scale, with balanced risk sharing between a strategic tenant and infrastructure capital.

If execution matches the plan, the approach could accelerate deployment cycles for artificial intelligence infrastructure, while providing long-horizon investors with exposure to one of the most critical assets in the digital economy.

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Meta secures $30B for Louisiana AI data center