Data Centers: Financing the AI Buildout with Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh | Markus Academy | Ep. 161

Follow the link for the full summary: https://markusacademy.substack.com/p/... Link to sign up for the webinar series: https://markusacademy.substack.com/ For the latest episode of Markus’ Academy Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh presented his recent paper: Financing the AI Buildout: https://business.columbia.edu/sites/d... Van Nieuwerburgh is the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. A summary in three bullets: ● The new wave of AI development is driving a new wave of physical capital formation that is both unusual in scale and in composition ● The buildout is changing who owns and finances AI infrastructure. Hyperscalers are moving away from fully self-funding data centers and are increasingly relying on landlords, debt, SPVs, private credit, and securitized structures ● This new architecture differs from the old model: leverage is rising, obligations are moving off balance sheet, and risk may be ending up with investors who are harder to identify and monitor Timestamps: [04:32] Why AI changed the Economics of Data Centers [22:25] The changing ownership and financing of the AI buildout [38:20] The New Finance Architecture of the AI Buildout Transfers Risk and Increases Opacity [50:26] What could go wrong?