BlackRock is leading a roughly $12 billion debt package to finance Meta Platforms’ massive El Paso data center campus, underscoring how the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom is increasingly being funded in the credit markets rather than just from Big Tech cash flow.
BlackRock Funds Meta's Massive El Paso Data Center
The financing matters because hyperscale data centers have become one of the largest new sources of capital demand in the U.S. economy, pulling in insurers, asset managers and private credit investors even as benchmark yields remain elevated. Meta has already committed to a heavy infrastructure spending cycle, with its latest filing showing about $182.88 billion of operating and finance lease obligations, much of it tied to data centers and other network buildouts.
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For investors, the deal is another signal that AI-linked capex is widening beyond chipmakers and cloud providers into a broader ecosystem of lenders, landlords and infrastructure investors. BlackRock’s involvement highlights the hunt for yield in a market where 10-year Treasury yields are around 4.55%, the fed funds rate is about 3.63%, and financing large, long-duration assets still offers attractive spreads if demand holds.
The El Paso campus is part of Meta’s broader race to secure compute power for artificial intelligence and keep pace with rivals spending aggressively on servers, power and real estate. Meta’s stock has been volatile around that capex backdrop, recently trading near $647 after recovering from a pullback below $600 earlier this month, while BlackRock shares have been steadier but still sensitive to credit-market demand and asset-gathering trends.
The financing also fits a wider pattern across the data-center sector, where owners and operators are using debt and asset-level capital to accelerate expansion. Comparable transactions in the space have been drawing large checks as investors price in long lease terms, sticky demand from hyperscalers and the possibility that AI infrastructure becomes a multi-year growth trade rather than a short-lived spending surge.
If the deal closes as expected, it will reinforce the view that the next phase of the AI trade runs through capital formation as much as software and semiconductors. The key risks are still higher-for-longer rates, execution on the buildout and any slowdown in Meta’s spending pace if returns on AI infrastructure take longer to materialize.
| Entity | Gains | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| BlackRock | ▲Fee income, credit exposure | ▼Capital at risk if demand weakens |
| Meta | ▲Fast funding for El Paso buildout | ▼Higher leverage and capex burden |
| Data-center lenders | ▲Yield on large asset-backed debt | ▼Refinancing risk if rates stay high |
| Rival hyperscalers | ▲Validation of AI infrastructure financing | ▼More expensive capital race |
