Oracle has issued a force majeure notice on Project Jupiter, its 2.45-gigawatt data center facility for OpenAI in New Mexico, sending its shares down roughly 4% on Thursday, September 24. The investor reaction stemmed not from any acknowledged delay—which Oracle has refused to concede—but from what the notice suggests about an AI buildout increasingly reliant on borrowed money, constrained power supplies, and tight construction timelines.

Why Oracle is invoking a clause meant for events beyond its control

The notice was sent to a Blue Owl Capital unit involved in developing the site in Doña Ana County. Force majeure clauses permit companies to suspend obligations under an existing contract when unforeseen events occur. Oracle is seeking to use such a clause to postpone payments tied to Project Jupiter if the facility does not launch successfully by 2028 as planned.

Under the agreement, Oracle is responsible for securing power and cannot terminate the lease, Reuters reported. Blue Owl, which owns developer Stack Infrastructure, holds about $3 billion of equity in the project, while Oracle covers the debt costs.

The 1,400-acre campus has raised roughly $18 billion from banks and has already faced a delayed natural gas pipeline as well as legal challenges over air quality and water permits. Blue Owl is set to receive a 9% return before construction is completed and expects a return of about 11% if the project goes smoothly. Reuters adds that a prolonged development could defer those high returns.

The whole AI complex moved on one filing

According to Yahoo Finance, the selloff swept in Nvidia, AMD, and Micron alongside Oracle, underscoring how closely investors tie Oracle's AI progress to the chipmakers supplying the buildout.

"Oracle is in the most tenuous of cash positions of all the major hyperscalers," KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader told Yahoo Finance. He noted that Oracle "does feel it more acutely than its larger, more cash-rich peers." His concern is one of timing: payments can come due before power, permits, and construction are ready to turn capacity into revenue.

William Blair was less concerned, telling Yahoo Finance it expects little near-term impact because Jupiter contributes no revenue in fiscal 2027.

A buildout running on borrowed money and scarce power

The episode highlights what happens when spending commitments come due before projects are ready to generate revenue—a question that grows more pressing as debt plays a growing role in financing the AI buildout. Goldman Sachs Research estimates that nearly $500 billion of AI-related debt has been issued so far in 2026, and credit strategist Amanda Lynam called the wave of AI-related debt unprecedented in both its size and its multi-year nature.

According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), if the climate of optimism surrounding AI turns sour, leveraged firms, credit markets and suppliers alike could feel negative effects. Meanwhile, PwC forecasts that total global data-center expenditure will reach $31.6 trillion by 2050, with energy availability determining how much capacity actually gets built, and where.

Oracle sits at the center of those demands. According to Oracle's latest SEC filing, the company reported capital expenditures of $28.5 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal year, remaining performance obligations of $664 billion, and $125 billion in senior notes and other long-term borrowings.

Cryptopolitan previously reported that Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue rose 121%, and S&P Global downgraded the company's credit rating in July. In February, Oracle announced plans to raise $45 billion to $50 billion this year to expand capacity for customers including OpenAI, Nvidia, AMD, Meta, and xAI. The Oracle-OpenAI partnership targets an additional 4.5 gigawatts of Stargate capacity, adding to the larger $500 billion commitment tied to the US infrastructure program—the OpenAI-led initiative to build gigawatt-scale AI data centers, of which the New Mexico campus is a part.

Oracle insists nothing has changed

Oracle has firmly rejected claims of project setbacks. Michael Egbert, Oracle's Vice President, said "Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule" and that the company is "fully committed to New Mexico."

In an X post, Oracle said force majeure notices are a common process for projects of this magnitude, adding that such notices are filed to protect rights under the contract rather than to prove delay on the project.

In another post, Oracle confirmed that construction of the campus employs more than 3,600 workers and that the project will generate over $4.7 billion in economic benefits for New Mexico. Blue Owl also indicated that it is not changing its financial commitments to the project.

The immediate question is whether Project Jupiter can hit its planned 2028 launch—an outcome Oracle maintains remains on schedule. How the delayed natural gas pipeline and the air and water permit challenges are resolved will be a key variable in that timeline, particularly given Oracle's obligation to secure the site's power.

Source: Cryptopolitan