By Tobias Burns
Publication Date: 2026-08-17 15:34:00
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talks to members of the press as he leaves the Hart Senate Office Building on July 28, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Finn Gomez | Getty Images
Recent Securities and Exchange Commission guidance is underpinning the debt-fueled data center buildout to support artificial intelligence.
The tech sector is getting creative in its hunt for new capital, with AI chipmaker Nvidia entering $500 billion in partially backstopped agreements last week with private equity firms to support what they’re calling a new “asset class” for computing power.
While data center securitizations have been around for years, the Nvidia announcement kicks it up to a new level, and the SEC has laid the groundwork in support of the rampup, legal specialists in the field told CNBC.
“Folks contemplating this transaction will be quite happy about the response from the SEC,” Orion Mountainspring, a securitization attorney with Orrick, told CNBC late last week.
Last month, the SEC agreed with law firm Latham Watkins that some data center debt would be exempt from securitization rules that require investment sponsors to shoulder some of the risk of their investments.
“It gives them the opportunity over time to push down the required equity in the deal,” Mountainspring said. “It’s definitely good news for them.”
Flexible, capital-efficient
B.K. Lee, an asset-backed security attorney at Alston & Bird, said the guidance could result in data center financing that is more “flexible and…
