Meta moved to raise at least $25 billion (about 36 trillion won) to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Bloomberg News reported on the 30th (local time) that the bond sale drew a whopping $125 billion (about 180 trillion won) in orders, setting a record for the biggest blockbuster public corporate bond offering.
Meta is issuing six tranches of bonds with maturities from five to 40 years through Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and the 40-year notes are expected to be priced about 1.4 percentage points above U.S. Government Bonds. The funds raised will be invested in infrastructure such as developing AI models and building new data centers.
Meta is currently building the 5-gigawatt (GW) Hyperion AI data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. That is equivalent to the output of five nuclear power plants and can supply electricity that about 5 million households can use at the same time.
In New Albany, Ohio, the 1 GW Prometheus data center is aiming to begin operations next year, and a new 1 GW complex is also being added in the El Paso area of Texas.
In the third-quarter results released recently, Meta guided capital expenditures this year of up to $72 billion and said, "The pace of investment will accelerate further next year." Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said, "I want to make sure we are not underinvesting," and emphasized, "Aggressively building out data center capacity ahead of demand is the right strategy."
Earlier, Meta also raised $30 billion (about 43 trillion won) from private equity firm Blue Owl Capital and Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO), broadening the base for infrastructure investment. Meanwhile, on the news of the large bond issuance, U.S. Government Bond prices fell for a second straight day.