Oracle’s move to protect itself against potential delays at a massive data centre project developed by Blue Owl in New Mexico sent a chill through the trillion-dollar market for AI infrastructure financing, according to interviews with bankers and investors.
Oracle issued a force majeure notice in connection with Jupiter, a data centre campus Blue Owl unit STACK Infrastructure is building to support OpenAI, the latest setback for a sector where lenders and investors are growing more cautious about financing the industry’s breakneck expansion. SB Energy decided this week to delay its IPO. With interest rates in the US rising to levels last seen two decades ago, Wall Street is intensifying its scrutiny of the economics and the politics of deals that just months ago appeared settled — meaning that the participation in a deal of highly rated firms such as Oracle isn’t necessarily enough to soothe anxious investors. Delaying completion pushes back the start of those higher returns for Blue Owl.
Oracle invoked force majeure due to delays securing power to the site, the person familiar with the matter said. The pullback comes as AI-related capital spending by the six biggest US technology companies is projected to reach around $1 trillion in 2027, according to Moody’s — raising concerns among lenders about whether markets can absorb the volume of issuance without wider pricing pressure or tighter terms. Blue Owl has about $3 billion of equity invested in the project and earns a lower return during construction, with returns increasing once the data centre is completed, the person familiar with the terms said.
Blue Owl said the notice did not alter the parties’ commitment to the project. Even so, the event is reverberating through discussions around other proposed data centre financings, including SB Energy, which is developing a campus to serve OpenAI in Ohio, a person close to its financing said. Investors and lenders are studying the Oracle situation as a real-world example of how contractual protections may be tested and who pays the bill when projects run into delays outside the parties’ control , they said. The program is being delayed by a year, said the person familiar with Oracle’s notice and the deal.
