Raising $29 billion, Meta aims to partner with PE giants to build AI data centers

Social media giant Meta is seeking to raise up to $29 billion from private equity giants to build AI data centers on a large scale in the United States, marking the company's full-scale push into the artificial intelligence field.

According to media reports on the 28th, negotiations between Meta and several private equity giants, including Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle, and Pimco, have entered an advanced stage.

It is understood that Meta plans to raise $3 billion in equity and $26 billion in debt. The company is currently discussing how to structure this massive debt financing, which is expected to become one of the largest transactions of its kind in private financing.

AI Competition Intensifies, Meta Accelerates Layout

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is significantly increasing his investment in artificial intelligence, as the company has previously lagged behind competitors in AI development. Its large language model Llama 4 has not performed as expected, and the release of its flagship model "Behemoth" has also been delayed.

Wall Street Journal previously mentioned that to catch up, Meta announced this month a $15 billion investment in data labeling startup ScaleAI and hired Scale CEO Alexandr Wang to join a new "superintelligence" team focused on the development of general artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg himself is also actively recruiting AI talent from competitors, with three top OpenAI researchers announcing their joining Meta this week. Reports have indicated that Zuckerberg offered engineers a signing bonus of $100 million.

In its May financial report, Meta raised its full-year capital expenditure forecast by as much as 10%, to $64 billion to $72 billion, citing "additional AI data center investments" and "increased infrastructure hardware costs." This month, Meta also announced a twenty-year agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear power plant in Illinois to support its AI computing needs and reached four cooperation agreements with clean energy group Invenergy.

Private Capital Enters Tech Giants

Meta's choice to collaborate with large asset management companies aims to share the risks and costs of massive investments to gain an advantage in the AI computing capability race. This trend is not an isolated case, as other tech giants are also turning to private investment firms for funding support. For example, OpenAI is collaborating with Blue Owl to jointly invest $15 billion in building a data center in Texas; OpenAI is also negotiating a $500 billion joint venture project for data centers with investors such as SoftBank and Oracle.

Blue-chip companies are increasingly relying on private investment firms for funding to avoid putting excessive pressure on their balance sheets from large capital projects. These transactions are typically conducted through special purpose vehicles or joint ventures, where asset management companies acquire significant minority stakes, and companies contribute assets in exchange for capital provided by private investment firms This structure can help companies keep debt-like financing off their balance sheets, thereby avoiding an impact on their leverage ratios and credit ratings.

Private investment firms such as Apollo reached an agreement with Intel last year for $11 billion to fund Intel's semiconductor manufacturing plant in Ireland in exchange for equity in its business units and secured cash flows. Apollo and asset management companies like Blackstone now own or have established partnerships with major insurance companies and annuity providers, which require high-quality investments approved by regulators. To achieve yields higher than government or corporate bonds, they turn to these customized financing solutions