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Oracle's force majeure notice puts power on Project Jupiter's critical path
Oracle invoked force majeure on Project Jupiter, a New Mexico AI campus for OpenAI now expected to run about a year late. The delay postpones the higher post-completion return on Blue Owl's roughly $3 billion of equity.
The Engineer · Build desk
What happened
- Oracle issued a force majeure notice on September 24 over Project Jupiter, a New Mexico data center campus intended to support OpenAI.
- Oracle moved the campus to a Bloom Energy fuel-cell microgrid in June, and TechCrunch reported the supply pipeline delayed and the fuel cells' air permit still pending.
- Blue Owl, whose STACK unit is developing Jupiter, said the notice does not change the parties' financial commitments and that all three companies remain aligned.
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Why it matters
- cost Blue Owl's roughly $3 billion of equity stays on its lower construction-phase return for about a year longer than planned, unless lease terms nobody has disclosed move that cost elsewhere.
- constraint Progress on the buildings no longer predicts when compute arrives, because the in-service date depends on a delayed pipeline and a pending air permit.
- decision Investors in Jupiter cannot read a date off Blue Owl's statement, so they have to track the permit and the pipeline themselves to know when returns step up.
- precedent With Jupiter treated as a test case, lenders to the next AI campus have a concrete reason to price who carries a late power supply into the loan terms.
On September 14, Oracle separated the data center buildings from the power supply. It said construction of the buildings did not require the air permit under review [9]. The pending permit is for the Bloom Energy fuel-cell microgrid [8], and that microgrid is the campus's proposed energy source [7]. Runtimewire noted that the distinction may matter for the project's legal and construction status, but it does not supply electricity [10]. A cloud business can sell AI computing only from a powered facility [10]. I think running the two permits on separate tracks is sound sequencing. It lets the buildings go up while the regulator reviews the microgrid.
The energy design has already changed once. Oracle's June 3 update replaced a gas-turbine and diesel-generator plan with the fuel-cell microgrid [7]. TechCrunch reported that the natural-gas pipeline meant to supply the site was delayed [8]. When STACK announced the campus in August 2025, its pitch included independent power [19]. Development now depends on coordinating construction with an energy system that has its own equipment, pipeline and regulatory timetable [11].
Oracle is the tenant, and its computing demand underpins Jupiter. STACK, Blue Owl's data center unit, is the developer [4]. The campus is meant to support OpenAI [1]. According to a person familiar with the notice, delays securing power prompted it [2]. The one-year estimate comes from a second person familiar with the deal [3]. Neither source was named by Reuters [2][3].
Blue Owl said the notice does not change the parties' financial commitments and that Blue Owl, STACK and Oracle remain aligned [5]. Runtimewire reads that as a defense of the commitments, and says it does not confirm that the schedule or power plan is unchanged [6]. The cost is in the schedule. Blue Owl has about $3 billion of equity in Jupiter. It earns a lower return during construction, and the return rises after completion [12]. Reuters attributed the equity figure to a person familiar with the deal [12]. If completion slips a year, the higher return starts about a year later [13]. The lease terms that would decide whether anyone else carries that cost have not been reported.
Morgan Stanley estimates AI infrastructure will need $1.5 trillion in external financing by 2028 [14]. Moody's projects about $1 trillion of capital spending by the six largest U.S. technology companies in 2027 [14]. Those are totals across the whole sector. They apply to any single campus only if its power arrives when its buildings are ready. Reuters reported that the Jupiter notice has become a test case for lenders [15]. Community opposition is a separate schedule risk. Data Center Watch counted at least 45 projects worth $68 billion facing it in the second quarter of 2026 [16]. In the first quarter, 75 projects worth about $130 billion were disrupted [16]. Blue Owl has already struggled to syndicate financing for a $4 billion data center project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, anchored by CoreWeave [18].
What to watch
- A decision on the pending air-quality permit for the Bloom fuel-cell microgrid, and its date relative to building completion.
- A revised in-service date from Oracle or STACK, or any disclosure of how the Jupiter lease allocates the cost of a power delay.
- Whether Blue Owl can syndicate debt for its next AI data center after the Jupiter notice and the earlier Lancaster difficulty.