AI Needs a Bigger Basement: Meta’s $29 Billion Bid to House the Future

Image Source: Hindustan Times

Strategic Highlight:
Meta Platforms is in final-stage talks to raise a record $29 billion from private capital firms to speed up its AI data center expansion in the United States. The expansion reflects Meta's aggressive push to dominate the AI infrastructure arms race, as it will post a combined capital spend of up to $65 billion in 2025 alone.

Funding Framework:

Meta will attempt to raise $3 billion of equity and $26 billion of debt

There are also negotiations with Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle, and PIMCO

Morgan Stanley is advising on the financing structure

The firm can make the debt more marketable at issuance

Infrastructure Ambitions:

Money will be spent on constructing AI-optimized data centers, like a record-breaking 4 million sq. ft. one in Louisiana

The Louisiana plant will hold as many as nine plants and consume over 2 gigawatts of electricity

Other ventures will be conducted in Texas, Wyoming, and Wisconsin

Competitive environment:

Meta's move follows Microsoft's 2025 $80 billion plan to build AI infrastructure

The company has already invested $14.8 billion in Scale AI

Meta plans to deploy over 1.3 million GPUs by year-end

Why It Matters: This fundraising is the beginning of a new era of AI arms-race lending, as technology giants are resorting to private credit markets to finance the massive computing assets required for future-generation AI models. Meta's approach may redefine the way hyperscalers construct and finance digital infrastructure.

Sources: Financial Times, Reuters, Hindustan Times, SiliconANGLE, Perplexity AI, US News