Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Traders mark the $18bn loan behind Oracle's New Mexico AI campus to 89 cents
A loan quoted below par is the only continuously updated figure anyone has on Oracle's quarter-built New Mexico AI campus, and whether it prices the buildings or the tenant's rating decides how much a stall report matters.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Cryptobriefing reported that Project Jupiter, Oracle's flagship AI data center campus in southern New Mexico, is being mothballed as financial pressure builds around the development.
- The 1,400-acre site in Dona Ana County was developed by Stack Infrastructure and BorderPlex Digital Assets to serve Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's AI workloads.
- The New Mexico Supreme Court lifted key stays on the project's permits on September 17, 2026, clearing construction to proceed after sustained challenges from environmental groups.
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Why it matters
- exposure Holders of the facility have written down about $1.98 billion of principal at 89 cents, and the same holders decide whether the three quarters of the campus still unbuilt gets funded.
- constraint At the pace of the first twelve months the four buildings are finished in mid-2029, so the compute this campus was designed to add to Stargate lands late in the decade.
- contradiction Oracle and its partners say the project is on track while an unattributed report says it is mothballed, which leaves the loan quote as the only figure on Jupiter that updates daily.
- cost New Mexico has banked tax receipts worth about 0.4% of the loan and is owed 1,500 permanent jobs that only exist once the buildings do.
A syndicated construction loan prices the tenant's promise as much as the concrete. Oracle's rating went to BBB- in July 2026, one notch above junk, and cryptobriefing attributed the slide in the facility to that downgrade [5][19]. Eleven cents off par on $18 billion is $1.98 billion of principal the secondary market has already written down; at 91 cents it is $1.62 billion [15]. Cryptobriefing put the implied loss in the neighbourhood of $1.6 billion to $2 billion [14].
Construction started in September 2025, and by early September 2026 the site was roughly 26% complete [4]. That is 2.2 points of progress a month. The remaining 74 points take about another 34 months at the same rate, which puts the four buildings at mid-2029, and only if no month is lost [16].
Two readings fit one price. Either lenders are discounting the chance that a site a quarter built ever gets finished, or they are marking Oracle's credit and the New Mexico dirt is incidental to the quote [4][5]. The second is the cheaper explanation, because the rating action came first and the discount followed it [19].
The physical record points the other way. Environmental groups challenged the permits and slowed the timeline, and on September 17, 2026 the New Mexico Supreme Court lifted key stays and allowed construction to formally proceed [10][9]. Oracle and its partners have maintained publicly that Jupiter remains on track, pointing to community investment plans, renewables procurement and the court ruling [12]. The mothballing comes from reports cryptobriefing did not identify [18].
What is actually being financed is four data center buildings on a behind-the-meter microgrid of Bloom Energy solid-oxide fuel cells, rated up to 2.45 GW, a design that replaced gas turbines after local pushback on emissions and water and that promised about 92% less NOx than the original plan [7][8]. The campus was laid out to handle OpenAI workloads as part of Stargate [13]. The 1,500 permanent operating jobs come after the buildings [11].
New Mexico, meanwhile, had collected nearly $80 million in tax revenue from the project by late July 2026, about 0.4% of the loan facility [6][17]. The state's exposure is jobs and receipts. The lenders' exposure is principal, and the 74% still unbuilt is the part they have to keep funding [4].
In my view the discount belongs to Oracle's balance sheet and the stall is the unverified half of the story. If the paper slips further while the BBB- rating holds, or if Stack Infrastructure and BorderPlex confirm a stoppage at Dona Ana County, then the price belongs to Jupiter and I have this wrong [3][5][2].
What to watch
- Whether Stack Infrastructure or BorderPlex Digital Assets confirms a work stoppage at Dona Ana County, or gives a restart date.
- The secondary quote on the $18 billion facility after the next Oracle rating action: a further slide while BBB- holds points at the project, not the tenant.
- Whether New Mexico's tax receipts from the site keep accruing past the nearly $80 million recorded by late July 2026.