Meta Teams Up with Private Equity Giants to Raise $29B for AI Data Centers

Meta is going all-in on AI—again. But this time, it’s not just internal R&D or splashy announcements.

According to reports, Meta is in deep talks with private equity giants like Apollo Global, KKR, Carlyle, Brookfield, and Pimco to raise a staggering $29 billion to build AI-focused data centers across the U.S. That’s $3 billion in equity and another $26 billion in debt—likely one of the largest private infrastructure deals of its kind.

What’s driving this?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been under pressure to catch up in the AI race. While competitors like OpenAI and Google have grabbed headlines with GPT-4 and Gemini, Meta’s own large language model—Llama 4—has underperformed expectations. Their flagship “Behemoth” model is still delayed. So now, Meta is opening the financial floodgates to accelerate compute capacity and regain lost ground.

This follows a string of AI-related moves by the company:

On May 2, during the Q1 2025 earnings call, Meta boosted its 2025 capital expenditure guidance by up to 10%, now reaching $64B–$72B.
On June 3, Meta and Constellation Energy signed a 20-year power purchase agreement for an Illinois nuclear plant to power future AI workloads.
On June 10, Meta announced a deal to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI for approximately $14.3–15 billion. As part of the deal, Scale’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, joined Meta to lead its newly formed “Superintelligence” team.
On June 18, Meta recruited multiple senior researchers from OpenAI, reportedly offering signing bonuses up to $100 million.

All of this shows just how capital-intensive the AI infrastructure game has become.

Why bring in private equity?

The short answer: balance sheet management.

Rather than taking on all the debt themselves—or diluting existing shareholders—Meta is forming partnerships through special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) or joint ventures. These structures allow private capital to fund massive infrastructure projects, while keeping the associated debt off the tech company's own books.

This is becoming an increasingly common playbook. OpenAI, for instance, is reportedly working with Blue Owl to fund a $15B data center in Texas, and is in talks with SoftBank and Oracle on a $500B data center partnership.

These aren’t traditional VC-style deals. Firms like Apollo and KKR manage insurance and pension money that needs predictable, long-term cash flow. By securing a stake in AI data infrastructure—often with guaranteed returns—they get bond-like income with better upside. For the tech company, it’s a way to scale fast without breaking leverage ratios or risking a credit downgrade.

A quiet shift in how Big Tech funds its future

This type of financial engineering used to be common in sectors like real estate, energy, and telecom. Now, it’s coming to Big Tech.

Apollo already inked a $11B deal with Intel last year to finance its chip plants in Ireland. Others will likely follow.

Zuckerberg isn’t just betting on AI—he’s betting that Meta can build the infrastructure and still maintain investor confidence in its core business. It’s a high-stakes balancing act—especially as investors become more selective about what’s next for Big Tech.

Final thought

We’re entering a phase where AI isn’t just about models and talent—it's about capital. And increasingly, the winners may be those who can build not just smarter algorithms, but smarter financing too.

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