Apollo Global (APO.US) to Co-Lead Meta Platforms (META.US) $35B Data Center Financing

Apollo Global Management, the U.S. private equity giant, is in talks to lead a package of financing worth about $35 billion for Meta Platforms to help it develop data centers in the U.S., according to sources familiar with the matter. Apollo has discussed providing most of the financing, the sources said. The financing negotiations are still in early stages and cannot be guaranteed to be completed. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that the company would spend up to $65 billion this year to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure. He said the measures would include building a massive new data center and hiring more people to its AI team. Meta said its focus includes achieving 1GW of online computing capacity by 2025. The company has already announced a $10 billion investment in Louisiana to build a data center and has bought new computer chips to power some of its products. Zuckerberg also told investors in January that Meta's investment in AI infrastructure would ultimately total in the trillions of dollars. Another tech giant, Microsoft, said it expects to spend $80 billion on data centers this fiscal year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last month that the company must maintain its spending to meet "exponentially growing demand." Building infrastructure to meet AI demands is estimated to cost trillions of dollars. Bankers and investors have been eager to cash in on the AI spending boom after seeing the stock market reward companies crucial to the ecosystem for much of the past year. Apollo has worked with tech giants before, but the potential deal with Meta is particularly noteworthy. Databricks, the "super unicorn" AI analytics company, previously raised more than $5 billion in debt financing from lenders including Blackstone, Apollo and Blue Owl Capital, its largest debt financing to date. Apollo last year acquired a stake in Intel's joint venture in an Irish factory for $11 billion.