🚨 Major US data center operators are shopping majority stakes worth tens of billions, per WSJ reporting this month.

Netrality, DataBank, Edged, and EdgeCore are working with bankers to sell controlling equity in their entire companies, not just individual facilities. DataBank alone could be valued near 25 billion dollars. Buyers lining up: private equity, infrastructure funds, sovereign wealth funds, and pensions chasing long-term contracted cash flows from AI tenants.

The backdrop is messy. The US-Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz, knocking out about 20 percent of global LNG and a third of the world's helium supply (an LNG byproduct with no substitute in chipmaking). Construction material costs are up as much as 20 percent, and JPMorgan says over 60 percent of US capacity slated for 2027 completion has not even started construction.

Two ways to read the sales: developers cashing out at peak valuations while they can, or the normal lifecycle of infrastructure assets rotating from builders to long-term holders. Morningstar's own take: 'Is this the reallocation of capital or the top of the market?'

Meanwhile, capital is still pouring in the other direction. BlackRock and MGX just closed a 40 billion dollar acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, and Fluidstack raised 830 million this week at a 7.5 billion valuation.

Read more:
blockspace.media/insight/data-…
morningstar.com/stocks/private…
theregister.com/on-prem/2026/0…

#DataCenters #AI #Finance

🏦 S&P just put Oracle one notch above junk, and OpenAI is the swing factor.

On July 9, S&P cut Oracle to BBB- from BBB. The agency said Oracle's AI buildout is much more capital intensive than expected and named OpenAI as a key credit risk.

The important nuance: this is not about receivables. S&P estimates OpenAI makes up roughly half of Oracle's $638 billion in remaining performance obligations, meaning contracted future revenue. Oracle's own filings also show $261 billion of additional data center lease commitments as of Feb. 28, 2026, generally 15 to 19 year terms.

That is the squeeze. Oracle is locking in 15 to 19 year costs while the headline OpenAI cloud deal is reported at about $300 billion over roughly five years. OpenAI is still private, has no public credit rating, and was still losing billions as of its last reported numbers.

Sources:
spglobal.com/ratings/en/regula…
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/13…
wsj.com/business/openai-oracle…
cnbc.com/2025/06/09/openai-hit…

#AI #Oracle #Finance

🏦 TIL: Five US tech giants are carrying $1.65 trillion in AI-related obligations that don't appear on their balance sheets, more than the $1.35 trillion that does.

A Nikkei study of Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle found this invisible debt has grown 8x in four years. It's future payment obligations: data center leases, GPU supply contracts, and SPV financing, disclosed only in the footnotes.

The mechanics are legal but eye-opening. Meta's $27B Hyperion data center in Louisiana is owned by a joint venture (Meta 20%, Blue Owl Capital 80%) that raised the debt from Pimco, BlackRock, and Apollo. Meta leases it back in 4-year blocks so it stays an operating expense, not debt. Oracle's off-book commitments grew 30x in four years, much of it for the Stargate project with OpenAI.

The catch: when these facilities go live, the leases roll onto the balance sheet at once. If AI demand falls short, the losses land on lenders and insurers (including, indirectly, annuity holders).

Meanwhile Apple, which sat out the AI buildout, sued OpenAI for trade secret theft on July 10.

Read more:
asia.nikkei.com/business/techn…
financialpost.com/financial-ti…
techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/appl…

#AI #BigTech #finance