"The agreement, which was reportedly brokered by Morgan Stanley, will see Meta retain a 20 percent stake in the colossal datacenter project and has been structured in such a way as to keep the debt off of the Social Network's balance sheets. The debt, which Bloomberg reports will be carried by the financier, is set to mature in 2049 and is said to be fully amortizing. Meta, meanwhile, will be responsible for building, operating, and ultimately leasing the facility when it comes online in 2029."
"First announced in late December, the four million square-foot datacenter campus, since branded as Hyperion, was originally expected to cost $10 billion - a figure we suspect didn't include critical IT hardware like servers and networking. Since then, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ambitions have grown, and the site is now expected to top five gigawatts of total compute capacity making it one of the largest single datacenter projects of the AI boom so far."
"However, achieving this will require a substantial expansion of power infrastructure. As we learned in December, Meta has commissioned a new natural gas generator plant to be built by local utility operator Entergy. At least for the initial build out, the gas plant would employ three combined cycle combustion turbine generators with a total generative capacity of over 2.2 gigawatts."
Meta obtained roughly $27 billion in debt and $1.5 billion in equity financing from Blue Owl Capital to fund the Hyperion datacenter in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The financing keeps the debt off Meta's balance sheet while leaving Meta with a 20 percent stake; the debt is carried by the financier, fully amortizing and maturing in 2049. Meta will build, operate, and lease the four million square-foot campus, now expected to exceed five gigawatts of compute capacity and come online in 2029, requiring significant new power infrastructure including a natural gas plant by Entergy.
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