By Michelle Chan
Publication Date: 2026-02-04 05:00:00
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Banks are turning to investors such as insurance companies and private debt funds to find buyers for tens of billions of dollars in loans tied to Oracle’s massive data center projects.
Loans to build data centers worth at least $56 billion — backed by future leases from the software company under its $300 billion deal OpenAI — received an investment-grade rating, according to people familiar with the deals. These ratings, which are relatively rare for infrastructure construction loans, have allowed banks to attract a much broader investor base than is typical for project finance loans.
While banks have mostly tended to self-finance project finance loans for the construction of toll roads and airports, the enormous contract sizes of recent data center projects have overwhelmed this source of demand, leaving tech giants eager to capture new…