JPMorgan and Goldman have built specialist teams to pitch financing to datacenter operators and prospective buyers of the debt as Europe pushes to reduce dependence on foreign technology. "There hasn't been a great deal of issuance here but there has been intense investor focus," said Noah Roth, who leads EMEA leveraged finance for JPMorgan out of London.
Miriam Wheeler, Goldman Sachs's global head of leveraged finance, offered a sense of scale around individual deals. For each new 100 to 200 megawatt site in Europe, she said, "$1 billion, $2 billion debt deals at a minimum." She also projects Europe's portion of the global AI build-out to rise from 10% to as high as 25%. If more mega capital spending lands in Europe, she said, financing could show up in the 144A market across both investment grade and non-investment grade.
Linklaters partner Giacomo Reali, who focuses on leveraged finance, characterized the expansion as a strategic imperative: "Regardless of whether or not we have a European champion in AI, Europe will need to have data centers, for European security and for data sovereignty." And as issuers test Europe's market, Ariel Goldman of Cahill Gordon & Reindel expects them to choose the "cleanest, easiest path" at first to establish a record before moving to bespoke structures.
Goldman Sachs estimates European markets could see between $5 billion and $10 billion in data-center bond issuance by year-end, with a much larger amount likely in 2027 as projects ramp up. That is a fraction of what the region may ultimately require.
The US is already much further along. Bloomberg data show more than $350 billion in AI-linked issuance so far this year. At the same time, AI leaders in the US are warning about catastrophic risks from the most advanced models, and states such as Texas and New York are putting limits on new data centers.
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In Europe, policymakers worry about moving too slowly. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has cautioned that overreliance on US tech could hand Europe's trading partners outsized leverage.
Europe's early AI infrastructure was funded with bank loans, project finance and securitizations. The next wave looks bigger. Start Campus in Portugal, a planned 1.2 gigawatt complex, is the kind of project that will need deeper capital markets and could pull in both investment-grade and high-yield buyers. Today, AI-linked borrowing is about 5% of Europe's high-yield issuance, compared with 19% in the US, per Dealogic and Goldman Sachs research.
Investors have stepped up their diligence. In July, some took the roughly one-hour journey from London to Slough to tour Equinix Inc. facilities. That was an unusual level of legwork for a £280 million deal, roughly $377 million, and demand showed up: orders topped £510 million.
The flip side is caution. The only data center bonds sold in Europe's junk market to date, from CoreWeave Inc., have traded below par since news that key client Meta Platforms Inc. is building a rival cloud-infrastructure business.
Bigger sites mean larger tickets, and that is where bond markets come in. If even a handful of 100 to 200 megawatt projects move ahead, Wheeler's math on "$1 billion, $2 billion" financings suggests more opportunities to get exposure via both euro and 144A formats. Expect a learning curve for lenders, plus scrutiny on power and water usage, so not every proposal will pass muster.
For everyday portfolios, the takeaway is simple: Europe is gearing up to fund a lot more AI plumbing, and that could gradually expand the menu of infrastructure debt you can buy. The country mix, ESG risks and who the end customers are will matter as much as the coupons. Policy choices in the US and Europe are already shaping where the next bonds list.
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