Meta's 'Project Walleye' Ohio Data Center Campus Seeks $3 Billion in Loans Covering Building and Power

Meta is seeking $3 billion in financing for its 'Project Walleye' data center campus in Ohio in a first-of-its-kind deal in which lenders would fund both the construction of the facility and the power assets required to operate it, the Financial Times reported. The dual financing structure -- covering both the building and the power infrastructure simultaneously -- represents a new model for data center capital markets. Traditionally, data center construction financing and power project financing have been handled separately, with different lender pools and risk profiles. Combining them into a single deal reflects the degree to which power availability has become inseparable from data center viability. Meta's Ohio data center complex is one of the largest in the company's expanding AI infrastructure portfolio. The company has committed tens of billions of dollars to data center expansion as part of its plan to build AI training and inference capacity for its consumer products and its Llama AI model development. The $3 billion loan facility would be one of the largest single data center financing transactions in the US market. The FT reported that the deal is expected to attract institutional lenders including major banks and infrastructure funds that have been increasing their exposure to AI data center assets. The Project Walleye financing comes as AI infrastructure investment has driven unprecedented capital flows into data centers. Infrastructure funds, sovereign wealth funds, and pension capital have all been seeking exposure to the asset class, while data center developers have been pioneering new financing structures to accelerate construction timelines.