Private credit firm Blue Owl funds AI infrastructure using Business Development Companies (BDCs), which are often publicly traded. This structure functions like a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), allowing retail investors to participate in high-yield private credit deals through stock ownership and dividends.
Related Insights
Firms like Blue Owl showcase their role in the AI boom, raising billions for data centers. This forward-looking narrative masks a critical risk: they are simultaneously blocking investor redemptions in older, less glamorous funds. This reveals a dangerous liquidity mismatch where retail investors are trapped in the illiquid present while being sold a high-growth future.
The massive capital expenditure for AI infrastructure will not primarily come from traditional unsecured corporate credit. Instead, a specialized form of private credit known as asset-based finance (ABF) is expected to provide over $800 billion of the required $1.5 trillion in external funding.
Unlike the previous era of highly profitable, self-funding tech giants, the AI boom requires enormous capital for infrastructure. This has forced tech companies to seek complex financing from Wall Street through debt and SPVs, re-integrating the two industries after years of operating independently. Tech now needs finance to sustain its next wave of growth.
Large tech companies are creating SPVs—separate legal entities—to build data centers. This strategy allows them to take on significant debt for AI infrastructure projects without that debt appearing on the parent company's balance sheet. This protects their pristine credit ratings, enabling them to borrow money more cheaply for other ventures.
Unlike the asset-light software era dominated by venture equity, the current AI and defense tech cycle is asset-heavy, requiring massive capital for hardware and infrastructure. This fundamental shift makes private credit a necessary financing tool for growth companies, forcing a mental model change away from Silicon Valley's traditional debt aversion.
Private credit has become a key enabler of the AI boom, with firms like Blue Owl financing tens of billions in data center construction for giants like Meta and Oracle. This structure allows hyperscalers to expand off-balance-sheet, effectively transferring the immense capital risk of the AI build-out from Silicon Valley tech companies to the broader Wall Street financial system.
The financing for the next stage of AI development, particularly for data centers, will shift towards public and private credit markets. This includes unsecured, structured, and securitized debt, marking a crucial role for fixed income in enabling technological growth.
The enormous capital needed for AI data centers is forcing a shift in tech financing. The appearance of credit default swaps on Oracle debt signals the re-emergence of large-scale debt and leverage, a departure from the equity and free-cash-flow models that have characterized the industry for two decades.
Companies like Meta are partnering with firms like Blue Owl to create highly leveraged (e.g., 90% debt) special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to build AI data centers. This structure keeps billions in debt off the tech giant's balance sheet while financing an immature, high-demand asset, creating a complex and potentially fragile arrangement.
Ackman's investment in Brookfield provides indirect access to private real estate, infrastructure like toll roads and ports, and private credit. This serves as a model for retail investors to gain exposure to institutional-grade alternative assets through a single, publicly traded stock, which is typically inaccessible to them.
