Oracle must pay data centre investors even if the site has no electricity
Oracle on the hook to pay data centre investors even if site has no electricity
Oracle has signed contracts obliging it to keep paying data centre investors even when a site has no power, the Financial Times reports. The arrangement shifts risk from landlords to the cloud company, which is spending heavily on AI infrastructure. It raises questions about how much exposure Oracle carries if projects stall or fail to secure electricity.
Oracle on the hook to pay data centre investors even if site has no electricity
- peri-cl
I'm very curious what happens now to the several gigawatts of fuel cells, that this project supposedly purchased to supply power.
> "Oracle signed a deal with solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Bloom last year for 1.8GW of power, expanding it to 2.8GW of capacity in April."
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/new-mexico-regula...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Energy
I was surprised to read we're already building fuel cell power plants on this scale (this is a first of its kind project—by far this startup's largest customer). I didn't realize the tech was that mature. Now I'm left wondering if they actually ever intended to, or whether this was some kind of circular financial-engineering vaporware.
- runeks
> The tech group has issued a force majeure notice related to the power supply to the project developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital, after the site ran into permitting delays after rising local opposition.
Since when can failing to get a permit be considered force majeure?
Doesn't majeure specifically denote something large scale and out of anyone's control, such as a hurricane?
- briffle
Great to know that everyone's RAM, GPU, and SSD costs have skyrocketed over the last year, so that companies like Oracle can fill giant buildings full of RAM and SSD's (and GPU's) and then not even be able to turn them on..
- Betelbuddy
- jpster
I thought force majeure is for weather catastrophes, natural disasters, terrorism, “acts of God”. Not for “we didn’t get the permits”.
- gchamonlive
A too-big-to-fail about to fail certain it'll be bailed out? Another comment* raised a question about investments in fuel cells that could have been just for show. Are they doing max damage to leech as much cash as possible before implosion or it's just... I mean, it's oracle it's a mystery to me how they make so much money with selling crapware, so it might just be business as usual?
- hn3ufz62f7
Agreed, and most of these leases explicitly carve permitting out of force majeure since it's the tenant's job to get them.
- Havoc
Oracle is on the hook for god damn everything. If AI implodes they'll be a smoking crater