Meta Seals $27 Billion ‘New Era’ AI Data Center Deal With Blue Owl Capital -( $META $MS $KKR $NVDA $OWL )

By John F. Heerdink, Jr.

Meta Platforms has secured a record $27 billion financing package from Blue Owl Capital (OWL) to develop its largest data center yet — a colossal new AI-driven hub in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The deal, structured through a joint venture that keeps Meta’s balance sheet light, marks the latest and most striking example of how private credit is reshaping the technology infrastructure sector.

Building the Hyperion Campus

Dubbed the Hyperion Data Center, the project will span roughly 4 million square feet, dwarfing most cloud infrastructure builds to date. Meta will retain about 20 percent ownership while overseeing construction, operations, and leasing, with Blue Owl taking a majority stake. Morgan Stanley (MS) arranged the financing via a special purpose vehicle, pulling together over $27 billion in debt and an additional $2.5 billion in equity from a syndicate including PIMCO and other bond investors. The bonds, structured as 144A private securities, are slated to mature in 2049.

Off-Balance Sheet Engineering

Crucially, Meta isn’t taking on the debt itself — the structure keeps the liabilities off the social media giant’s books while still granting it operational control over the facility. Analysts say this type of financial engineering could become a template for large-scale tech infrastructure projects, allowing companies to expand AI capabilities without damaging credit ratings. The model reflects an emerging partnership ecosystem where private credit firms like Blue Owl, Apollo, and KKR vie to finance complex, asset-heavy developments as banks tighten lending standards.

The Broader AI Race

Hyperion will be one of the most powerful single data center campuses in the world when completed in 2029, delivering an estimated 2.2 gigawatts of compute capacity dedicated largely to artificial intelligence workloads. The investment underscores Meta’s deepening commitment to AI infrastructure following its recent $1.5 billion expansion in El Paso, Texas, as competitors like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia (NVDA) also scale up to cope with surging model-training demand.

A Benchmark for Private Financing

At nearly $30 billion in total commitments, Hyperion represents the largest private capital raise for a single corporate infrastructure project on record. By pairing Blue Owl’s private credit funding with Meta’s operational leadership, the deal encapsulates the new financial order emerging around AI — one in which private lenders play a pivotal role in the backbone of the digital economy. Investors and industry observers will be watching closely as construction ramps up, not just for what Hyperion means to Meta, but for what it signals about how the next decade of AI infrastructure might be financed.