Atrium, an AI analytics startup founded in 2024 and based in San Diego, has unveiled a new interactive data and research platform called “Who Finances America’s Data Centres”. This platform tracks the debt behind every data centre deal in the United States. Commercial Observer was given an exclusive insight into this new research and analytical tool, which breaks down data centre financing in terms of commercial loans, CMBS, syndications, and corporate debt.
The data centre market continues to experience strong growth. Atrium’s platform has identified where the identifiable US$1.3 trillion in debt driving this development boom across nearly 4,300 US data centres originates from – and where it is flowing. As a first-time resource, the platform utilises data from local land records, SEC credit agreements, CMBS securitisations, as well as commercial bank and private credit syndications and corporate bond issuances. With this, it tracks the financial flows behind 3,038 operational data centre deals and another 1,258 in various stages of their lifecycle.
Ryan Alfred, founder of Atrium Data, told CO that data centres are currently the biggest driver of the economy. However, because they are financed differently from traditional real estate classes – often through multiple layers of county-level loans, syndicated debt, CMBS, asset-backed securities, SPV structures and, rather unusually, credit lines from regional utility companies – it has been difficult for market participants to get a clear picture of the financing behind the boom. He emphasised that Atrium approached this task with “fresh eyes”, as they were not constrained by previous methods of data collection and presentation in the CRE analytics space.
The Atrium platform analysed the origin of US$1.3 trillion in CRE debt for data centre deals, with a financial overlap of US$93.1 billion accounted for and isolated. The analysis revealed that mortgages, syndicated facilities, private credit, hyperscale corporate debt, and debt from regional utility companies account for the largest share – US$1.1 trillion – of US data centre financing. Mortgages contributed US$148 billion to the development of US data centres, with Wells Fargo leading the list with US$8.2 billion and JPMorgan Chase with US$6.9 billion.
Atrium argues that the largest lenders in the CRE sector are simultaneously active in mortgages, syndicated loan participations, and private credit lines. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse their combined debt holdings as a single metric. This is illustrated by the example of TD Bank: it has provided US$14.8 billion in direct loans for data centres. However, this figure rises to US$27 billion when the bank's 79 syndications are taken into account, making it the world's largest data centre lender. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase rank third and fourth with US$18.7 billion and US$17.9 billion respectively.
Syndicated facilities, where data centre operators raise debt from numerous private equity sponsors and commercial banks, amount to US$224 billion in industry loans. The largest individual deals in syndicated debt include Coreweave's US$23 billion debt facility from 38 lenders, DigitalBridge and IFM's US$20 billion facility from 24 lenders, QTS Realty and Blackstone's US$18.5 billion facility from 24 lenders, and Equinix's US$16.2 billion facility from 31 lenders, which is the largest deal sponsored by a public REIT.
In the private credit sector, Atrium highlights asset manager PIMCO, which holds a special position with US$23 billion in pure data centre financing. Of this, US$18 billion comes from the Meta and Blue Owl Beignet bond issuance from October 2025. Blue Owl Capital and Blackstone Credit follow PIMCO in this segment with US$11 billion and US$8 billion in data centre financing respectively. In total, SPVs and private credit amount to US$158 billion in financing for US data centres. The company notes that the arrival of private lenders is highly significant, as three of the top 15 lenders are now non-banks.
