BlackRock Inc. is seeking to sell more than $12 billion in bonds to help finance a Meta Platforms Inc. data center campus in El Paso, Texas. This debt sale is being arranged by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.
The bonds will be issued by a holding company tied to BlackRock's 80% ownership position in Project Sopaipilla Holdings, with Meta accounting for the remaining 20%. The El Paso data center, which will have a capacity of 1 gigawatt, is expected to be operational by 2028 and create over 300 permanent jobs.
Initially, Meta had used a similar joint venture structure for its Hyperion data center in Louisiana, partnering with Blue Owl Capital Inc. The Hyperion project, backed by $27 billion in debt, also involved Blue Owl owning 80% and Meta 20%. This structure allowed Meta to keep debt off its balance sheet while maintaining operational control. However, Meta recently expanded the Hyperion project to a 5-gigawatt capacity, increasing the estimated cost to $50 billion, with the additional expansion owned entirely by Meta.
While some reports indicate strong interest, there have also been concerns about weak demand for BlackRock's latest $12.3 billion bond sale, as investors weigh whether spending on AI infrastructure has become excessive.
This financing effort is part of a larger trend of debt issuances supporting the global development of AI infrastructure, with strategists at JPMorgan estimating that hyperscalers will allocate approximately $5.5 trillion to AI by 2030, a significant portion of which will be funded through debt markets.
