Data Centre Securitisation: Financing the AI Infrastructure Cycle

• The AI boom has expanded rapidly, now tapping extensively into fixed income markets.

• AI infrastructure has proliferated over the last few years, resulting in one of the largest capex cycles in recent history. Amazon alone has a guided capex of $200 billion in 2026, a 53% increase from the previous year.

• Estimations suggest that cumulative investment between 2025 and 2030 could reach up to $5.8 trillion. The result of this is a profound demand shock for capital, with direct implications on the structure and risk profile of the global bond market.

• Hence, in this Cordoba research note, we zoom specifically into the intersection between this AI boom and securitised credit structures, analysing the potential for securitised credit to become a structured funding channel for digital infrastructure.

Background

• Data centre assets are increasingly being packaged into securities.

• Securitisation is the process of pooling income-generating assets (such as mortgages or auto loans) into a marketable package. In Europe alone, outstanding securitised assets exceed $1.2 trillion.

• Data Centre securitisation is a specific case of asset backed securitisation (ABS), where the data centre itself is the asset. It differs from traditional securitisation as the underlying collateral is not consumer cash flows, rather contracted infrastructure cash flows.

• For example, a data centre operator such as Digital Realty leases capacity to hyperscale tenants including Microsoft or Amazon Web Services. These tenants typically sign multi-year contracts, generating predictable and recurring payment streams.

• Through securitisation, these contracted cashflows are pooled into a portfolio and transferred to a bankruptcy-remote special purpose vehicle (SPV). The SPV then issues tradable bonds backed by those revenues. The bonds are structured into different tranches (each carrying a distinct level of risk and return) and are rated before being sold to investors.

Scale

• Data centre securitisation is still a small segment of the broader structured credit market. Unlike RMBS or auto ABS, data centre securitisation transactions remain limited in frequency and are concentrated among larger, stabilised platforms.

• Most activity has been driven by operators with diversified portfolios and predictable lease income. Public REITs such as Digital Realty and Equinix have utilised structured secured financing and portfolio ring-fencing structures. Similarly, private equity-backed hyperscale developers and infrastructure sponsors have explored securitisation-style financing to recycle capital.

• For operators, the incentive for securitised financing is clear. Pressures such as rising power costs, aggressive buildout timelines, and investor scrutiny on leverage levels make traditional funding more difficult. Securitisation therefore acts as an effective to monetise these illiquid assets into income-generating securities.

• Alongside this, investor demand is also evolving. Institutional investors (particularly insurers and pension funds) seek long-duration assets with predictable income streams and yield premiums over traditional sovereign bonds.

• Crucially, this is not speculative demand. Many hyperscalers sign 5-15-year contracts, often with embedded escalation clauses tied to power usage or inflation. As data centre capacity is expected to nearly double by 2030, with initiatives such as Stargate, these contracted revenues increasingly resemble infrastructure annuities.

• The demand appears clearly two-sided. Issuers require capital to maintain and fund expansions, especially with capex across major platforms reaching up to $200 billion per year. Meanwhile, investors require diversified yield and duration in a market where traditional investment-grade spreads have tightened.

Regulation as a Catalyst

• Following the 2008 Financial Crisis, securitisation became closely associated with systemic risk. Europe in particular imposed heavy restrictions, including higher capital charges and mandatory risk retention of 5%.

• However, this stance has been changing.

• The 2025-2027 European Securitisation Reform reflects this shift. It aims to boost EU securitisation by reducing capital requirements, simplifying regulations, and enhancing transparency.

• Similarly, the UK has proposed reductions as of early 2026 in due diligence burdens and simplified data templates to improve market efficiency. Parts of Asia, particularly China and Singapore, have also seen significant expansion across structured credit markets as governments seek to mobilise private capital and support corporate financing.

• Evidently, the regulatory environment is no longer hostile to securitisation. This recalibration is likely to support the growth of data centre ABS as alternative sources of financing are increasingly sought.

Risks

• Despite the positive signs of growth shown by data centre ABS, its future rests on several assumptions.

• Power has become a significant constraint for data centres, with the IEA projecting that their consumption of electricity could double by 2030. If this becomes a binding limitation, revenue projections may prove overly optimistic.

• Moreover, tenant concentration is another concern. A small number of hyperscalers dominate demand for data centre operators. Despite these often being investment-grade corporates, a lack of diversification in the loan portfolio can still represent a vulnerability.

• Recent weeks have highlighted the volatility of investor sentiment around the AI boom. NVIDIA’s earnings illustrate this, as investors have become increasingly wary regarding AI-related capex and potential bubble dynamics. This sensitivity can influence broader risk appetite, including demand for securitised bonds linked to the theme.

• The fact that data centre ABS is centred around infrastructure ultimately means it carries operational risks that cannot be ignored.

Private credit intersection?

• Interestingly, data centre ABS has a strong link with the private credit boom.

• Private credit funds are already providers of construction financing and secured loans to hyperscale developers. As private credit funds build these loan books, securitisation provides a process to package these infrastructure loans and distribute risk elsewhere. This has been a rapidly growing trend, particularly in the US, with over $21 bn of asset-backed securities issued since 2018.

• Hence, with private credit and securitisation reinforcing each other, the scope for issuance could span beyond what traditional bank loans would enable.

Our View

• Overall, data centre ABS has the potential for huge upside given its support from AI capex, deregulation, and the private credit boom. It represents a clear movement of digital infrastructure and how it is tapping into capital markets.

• As private lenders originate more data-centre-backed loans, securitisation provides an optimal mechanism to scale and distribute that risk.

• Conditional on the management of power and tenant constraints, this securitisation story will likely follow that of private credit. It seems as though the real opportunity is not the AI itself, but the funding behind it.