The growing financial risks from this AI boom
Moving risks off balance sheets suggests the AI boom has forgotten a hard lesson from the 2008 global financial crisis.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
What’s happening with Meta and Hyperion echoes past events, critics say.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Sa-Pyung Sean Shin
Meta’s US$27 billion (S$34.52 billion) Hyperion data centre illustrates a growing financial risk in the artificial intelligence boom: debt that sits outside a company’s balance sheet.
The facility is 20 per cent owned by Meta and 80 per cent by private credit giant Blue Owl and funded through bonds with maturities of about 24 years, sparing Meta most of the upfront cost.