Who is paying for the AI data-centre boom? Bonds, private credit and off-books deals explained

AI data-centre financing is how the money to build AI data centres is raised, from a company's own cash to lenders, investors, partners and suppliers. Mostly it comes from the tech companies themselves, out of the cash their businesses throw off. But a growing share now comes from bond investors, private credit funds, smaller cloud providers and even chip makers, through deals that spread the cost and the risk in very different ways.

The spending itself is capex: money for buildings, chips and power equipment that lasts for years.

1. How do companies pay from their own cash?

A company spends part of what its business earns. No lender is involved, so nobody else carries the risk.

Meta's 10-Q filing for the third quarter of 2025 shows $79.59 billion of cash from operations in the first nine months of the year, and $48.31 billion spent on "purchases of property and equipment" over the same period.

2. How do corporate bonds pay for data centres?

When spending runs ahead of cash, companies borrow by selling bonds. A bond is a loan split into pieces and sold to investors, who get regular interest and their money back on a set date. The debt sits on the company's balance sheet, so shareholders and credit rating agencies can see it.

CNBC reported on 31 December 2025 that Meta had raised $30 billion in the bond market and Oracle $18 billion. In February 2026, CNBC reported that Alphabet had issued about $20 billion of debt, including a rare 100-year bond in sterling. The same report quoted a fund manager saying investors had long been told AI spending would be paid from cash, not debt.

3. How do joint ventures and private credit keep debt off the balance sheet?

A separate company owns the data centre and rents it back to the tech company, so the tech company does not borrow directly. That company, often called a special purpose vehicle, is set up with an outside investor, who puts in most of the money, partly borrowed.

Meta's Hyperion campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, is the best-documented case. On 21 October 2025, Meta said funds managed by Blue Owl Capital would own 80% of a joint venture to develop the campus, with Meta keeping 20%. The two sides committed to fund about $27 billion of development costs. Meta said part of Blue Owl's money would come from debt sold privately to PIMCO and other bond investors.

Meta's 10-Q adds the detail. Meta signed operating leases with the venture, with an initial commitment of about $12.3 billion over four years and options to renew for up to 20 years. It also gave a residual value guarantee: if Meta walks away and the campus is worth less than an agreed level, Meta pays part of the gap, up to a cap. The filing says that threshold starts at $28 billion and falls over time.

What does "off balance sheet" mean?

It means a debt is disclosed but not added to the company's own balance sheet, the list of what a company owns and what it owes. If Meta had borrowed $27 billion itself, that debt would appear there. Here, the venture borrows instead. Meta's filing says that because it does not control the venture's main decisions, the venture is "unconsolidated", meaning its assets and debts are not added to Meta's own. Meta records its 20% stake as an investment and describes the leases and guarantee in the notes. They are disclosed, but not counted as Meta's borrowing.

4. How does renting capacity from neoclouds and developers work?

The tech giant signs a long contract to rent capacity, and the neocloud raises the money to build. Neoclouds are newer cloud providers that specialise in renting out AI chips.

On 8 September 2025, Nebius filed a 6-K saying it had agreed to provide Microsoft with dedicated GPU capacity at a new data centre in Vineland, New Jersey, over five years, worth about $17.4 billion through 2031 (up to about $19.4 billion if Microsoft buys more). Nebius said cash from the contract would pay for part of the build, and that the deal would only start once it had secured any extra financing it needed. Microsoft can cancel tranches that arrive late, so the building risk sits largely with Nebius.

5. What is vendor financing?

Vendor financing is when the supplier helps pay for its own sales. On 22 September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent for OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems, with Nvidia intending to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as each gigawatt is deployed. CNBC described critics calling such arrangements circular, since money flows from the chip maker to the customer and back. It also noted Nvidia had told investors there was no assurance a final agreement would be signed.

That warning turned out to matter. In March 2026, CNBC reported that Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said the $100 billion investment was probably not going ahead because OpenAI planned to go public. Nvidia had instead put $30 billion into OpenAI as part of a funding round, and Huang said that might be its last investment in the company.

How do the five methods compare?

Each one leaves the risk with a different party, from the company's own shareholders to its supplier.

How should you read a financing headline?

Ask whose books the debt sits on, how long the lease runs and whether any money has actually moved.

• Find the balance sheet. Ask whose books the debt sits on. If it is a joint venture or a neocloud, look for leases and guarantees in the tech company's filing notes.
• Check the lease term. A short first term with long renewal options leaves the owner exposed.
• Separate intent from contract. A letter of intent or "up to" figure is not money that has moved.

Our take: none of these methods is good or bad on its own. Each one moves risk to a different party, and the useful question for any new deal is simply who is left holding the building if demand falls short.