Meta Seeks $29 Billion from Private Capital Firms to Fund AI Data Centers

Meta seeks $29bn from private credit giants to fund AI data centres

Meta is looking to raise $29bn to fund its all-in push into artificial intelligence, turning to private capital firms to finance its build out of data centres in the US. Talks between the Instagram-owner and private credit investors have advanced, with several large players including Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle and Pimco involved in the discussions, according to people familiar with the matter. Meta is hoping to raise $3bn of equity from them and then a further $26bn of debt. But it is debating how to structure the massive debt raising, as it considers options for what will be one of the largest private fundraisings of its kind. The company could also look to raise more capital, one person added. In partnering with big money managers, Meta and its biggest rivals are splitting the risks and costs of massive investments as they compete to secure computing capacity to power their AI models. Meta was working with its advisers at Morgan Stanley to arrange the financing, and it was considering ways that could make the debt more easily tradeable once it was issued, the people added. That is one factor potential investors who have studied the transaction have raised, given its sheer size. Meta, Morgan Stanley, Apollo, Brookfield, Carlyle, KKR and Pimco all declined to comment. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been sharply increasing his efforts to become the "AI leader" as the company's development has lagged rivals this year. Its Llama 4 large language model has not performed as well as expected and the release of its flagship "Behemoth" model has been delayed. Earlier this month, Meta announced a $15bn investment in data labelling start-up ScaleAI. As part of the deal, the social media group is also hiring Scale's chief executive Alexandr Wang to a new "superintelligence" team, tasked with developing artificial general intelligence. Zuckerberg has been personally trying to poach other AI talent, with three top OpenAI researchers announcing this week that they were joining the company. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said on a podcast that Zuckerberg had been offering his engineers $100mn sign-on bonuses. At its earnings in May, Meta raised its full-year capital expenditure forecast by as much as 10 per cent to between $64bn and $72bn, citing "additional data centre investments" to support its AI push as well as an "increase in the expected cost of infrastructure hardware". This month, it announced that it had agreed to buy the output of a nuclear plant in Illinois for two decades to power its AI efforts, marking its first nuclear deal, as well as four deals with clean energy group Invenergy. Private capital firms have also stepped up to finance data centres for OpenAI, with Blue Owl agreeing to help fund a $15bn joint venture to construct a development in Texas. OpenAI is also working with investors including SoftBank and Oracle on a $500bn data centre venture. Blue-chip companies such as Meta have been increasingly relying on private investment firms for firepower, as they look to avoid straining their own balance sheets to fund large-scale capital projects. Apollo last year struck an $11bn deal with Intel, where it agreed to finance the chipmaker's semiconductor fabrication plants in Ireland in exchange for a stake in a unit and guaranteed cash flows from the business. Private investment groups have increasingly been pitching investment grade corporations on alternative financings to traditional corporate bonds or loans. Such deals, including the Intel transaction, are often structured as special purpose vehicles or joint ventures, where the asset managers take a large minority ownership share in the vehicle. The company contributes assets to the venture in exchange for the capital -- either in debt or equity -- that private investment firms provide. The deals are then highly structured, with income and cash flows from the projects divided between the asset manager and company. The companies benefit from the financings in a critical way: the deals are structured to keep the debt-like fundraisings off their balance sheets, avoiding an impact to their leverage and ratings. Asset managers such as Apollo and Blackstone now own or have tie-ups with major insurers and annuity providers, which need high-quality investments that regulators will approve of. To generate higher returns than government or corporate bonds offer, they have turned to these bespoke financings.

Meta seeks $29 billion from private capital firms for AI data centers, FT reports

June 27 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab is seeking to raise $29 billion from private capital firms to build artificial intelligence data centers, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The Facebook-parent has advanced discussions with private credit investors including Apollo Global Management (APO.N), opens new tab, KKR (KKR.N), opens new tab, Brookfield (BAM.TO), opens new tab, , Carlyle and Pimco, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

Report: Meta seeking to raise $29B for AI data center construction - SiliconANGLE

Report: Meta seeking to raise $29B for AI data center construction Meta Platforms Inc. is reportedly seeking $29 billion from an investor consortium to finance the construction of new data centers. Discussions about the deal are in an advanced stage, sources told the Financial Times today. However, it's believed that some key transaction terms could still change. Notably, Meta may decide to raise more than $29 billion, which is in line with a February report from Bloomberg. The paper cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Apollo could lead a $35 billion financing package for Meta. Alongside Apollo, the consortium from which the Facebook parent hopes to raise the capital reportedly includes KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle and PIMCO. Meta is currently seeking $3 billion in equity funding and $26 billion worth of debt. The data centers that the company plans to build using the funds would be used to power artificial intelligence workloads. In January, Meta announced plans to spend up to $65 billion on AI infrastructure by year's end. Other AI data center builders already rely on debt to finance construction projects. CoreWeave Inc., which operates an AI-optimized public cloud, had about $8 billion of debt on its balance sheet last December. The company has used the graphics cards in its data centers as collateral for some loans. Debt financing is reportedly also supporting OpenAI's AI roadmap. Crusoe Energy Systems LLC, a Denver-based startup, and investment firm Blue Owl Capital have secured $7 billion worth of loans to build a data center complex in Texas. Oracle Corp. will reportedly use the site to host $40 billion worth of Nvidia Corp. chips for OpenAI. Meta is currently building a multibillion-dollar data center complex of its own in Louisiana. It's possible some of the new financing the company is reportedly seeking will go towards that project. According to Meta, the four million square foot site will host up to nine facilities once construction is complete. Those data centers are expected to require more than 2 gigawatts of power. One gigawatt corresponds to the electricity consumption of about 750,000 homes. Entergy Corp., a Fortune 500 energy company, will reportedly build 3 cycle power plants to support the data center campus. The project will also encompass four new substations and 100 miles of power transmission lines. A few hours before the Financial Times detailed Meta's fundraising push, Reuters reported that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign a set of AI-focused executive orders. They're expected to make it easier for AI data center builders to connect new power-generation equipment to the grid. Additionally, the executive orders will reportedly seek to streamline the permitting process for new data centers.

Meta seeks $29 billion from private capital firms for AI data centres: Financial Times - The Economic Times

Meta Platforms is seeking to raise $29 billion from private capital firms to build artificial intelligence data centres in the U.S., the Financial Times reported on Friday. The Facebook-parent has advanced discussions with private credit investors including Apollo Global Management, KKR , Brookfield , Carlyle and PIMCO, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Meta is looking to raise $3 billion in equity and $26 billion in debt, the report said, adding that the company is debating how to structure the debt raising and may also seek to raise more capital. Such a fundraising comes at a time when Meta has doubled down its commitment to artificial intelligence, including a $14.8 billion investment in startup Scale AI. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said in January the company would spend as much as $65 billion this year to expand its AI infrastructure, seeking to strengthen its position against competitors OpenAI and Google in the race to lead the AI technology landscape. Meta and Carlyle declined to comment, while Apollo Global, KKR, Brookfield and PIMCO did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Meta was working with its advisers at Morgan Stanley to arrange the financing, and it was considering ways that could make the debt more easily tradeable once it was issued, the FT report said. Major tech companies are investing heavily to secure the vast computing power needed to run AI models, fueling demand for specialized data centres that link thousands of chips into high-performance clusters. Microsoft has planned a capital expenditure of $80 billion in fiscal 2025, with most of it aimed at expanding data centres to ease capacity bottlenecks for AI services. Bloomberg News reported in February that Apollo Global Management is in talks to lead a roughly $35 billion financing package for Meta to help develop data centres in the United States.