BlackRock Preps $12B+ Bond Sale for Meta's El Paso AI Site

BlackRock Preps a $12 Billion-Plus Bond Sale to Fund Meta's El Paso AI Data Center

The asset manager's GIP and HPS units own 80% of the 1 GW Texas campus vehicle, extending the off-balance-sheet playbook Meta pioneered with Hyperion in Louisiana.

Jul 21, 2026Source: Bloomberg

BlackRock is preparing to sell more than $12 billion of bonds to finance Meta's AI data center campus in El Paso, Texas, Bloomberg reported Monday — one of the largest single-site debt raises of the AI buildout and the clearest showcase yet of BlackRock's $25 billion acquisition spree paying off.

The structure

The bonds are being sold by a holding company for BlackRock's 80% stake in "Project Sopaipilla Holdings" — the joint venture that owns the campus. Meta holds the remaining 20% while retaining operational control, keeping the debt off its balance sheet. BlackRock's position combines its two megadeals: infrastructure equity from GIP (acquired for $12.5 billion) and private credit from HPS Investment Partners ($12 billion). JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are arranging; investor calls ran Wednesday, with pricing expected early next week.

The campus

El Paso is a roughly 1 gigawatt site expected to be operational in 2028, supporting 300+ permanent jobs. The total financing package is about $13 billion, mostly debt with a smaller equity slice. Meta had already raised its El Paso commitment past $10 billion in March.

The Hyperion playbook, franchised

The template comes from Meta's Hyperion campus in Louisiana: an 80/20 JV with Blue Owl Capital that secured $27 billion in debt led by PIMCO — around $30 billion in total financing. Meta has since expanded Hyperion toward ~5 GW and an estimated $50 billion cost. El Paso proves the structure is repeatable with a different asset manager on the other side.

Off the books, on the meter

For Meta, SPV financing lets it build multi-gigawatt AI capacity without the debt showing up on its own balance sheet. For BlackRock, it converts client capital into long-duration, investment-grade-style AI infrastructure paper — an asset class that barely existed two years ago and now prices in the tens of billions per campus.

Why It Matters

AI infrastructure has spawned a parallel credit market: hyperscalers keep hundreds of billions in compute spending off their balance sheets while asset managers manufacture the bonds. That structure works while data center cash flows look bulletproof — but it also means the AI capex boom's leverage increasingly lives in private credit and SPVs, exactly where visibility is worst if demand ever disappoints.