3 articles
Power and permitting cap data center capacity. Credit markets determine which sponsors can finance projects within that physical ceiling. Hyperscaler balance sheets and guarantees provide the cheapest credit enhancement, concentrating the buildout among a few large platforms.
AI infrastructure is a real technology cycle wrapped in a leveraged-finance structure. Demand risk is moving from hyperscalers to banks, insurers, and bondholders through SPVs, GPU-backed debt, securitization, and synthetic risk transfer, making utilization, covenants, refinancing, and collateral the earliest signals of overcapacity.
The March 2026 Basel III reproposal lowers bank capital costs for mortgages, securitization, fee businesses, and scaled trading, but offers little relief for middle-market corporate credit. Risk remains in private markets while banks increasingly finance it through senior fund-finance structures.