Oracle says it isn’t worried about $165 billion Project Jupiter, but investors are

Oracle is brushing off the growing worries around Project Jupiter, its $165 billion AI data centre campus in New Mexico. Speaking at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas on October 27, Mahesh Thiagarajan, Oracle's president of Cloud Infrastructure, said, "We're actually not too worried about what we're doing because I think we're building global infrastructure." He also played down the project's weight, calling it just one of the 30 to 40 data centre projects Oracle has in development each quarter.The calm comes at a tense moment.

Last month, Oracle sent a force majeure notice to a unit of Blue Owl Capital, which owns the project's developer, STACK Infrastructure. The notice preserves Oracle's right to delay rent by up to three years if power problems keep the campus from opening on time in 2028. The roughly $18 billion construction loan behind the site has since traded at stressed levels, and Oracle shares are down more than 30% this year.Project Jupiter's power plan is still waiting on approvalsLocated near Santa Teresa in Doña Ana County, the 1,400-acre campus is one of the flagship Stargate sites being built for OpenAI.

The buildings are going up. The power to run them is yet to be cleared.Jupiter is designed to draw up to 2.45 gigawatts from a private microgrid of Bloom Energy fuel cells running on natural gas. Oracle moved to fuel cells from gas turbines in April, a switch it says cuts nitrogen oxide emissions by about 92%.The approvals have moved slowly. The New Mexico Supreme Court paused the air quality permit process in August before lifting the stay in September, and a permitting hearing is now scheduled for December 7 in Sunland Park.

The Green Chile pipeline that would supply the gas still needs federal authorisation, and its start date has slipped to February 2027. The state Land Office has also cancelled rights-of-way for parts of the pipeline route.Oracle maintains the project is on schedule and has called force majeure notices commonplace for developments of this size. Thiagarajan had told county commissioners in July that the campus could turn to the grid if the permit doesn't come through.Oracle's investors want answers on its data centre spendingUnder the lease, securing power is Oracle's responsibility, and the company covers the project's debt costs.

That leaves Oracle carrying much of the risk at a time when it has taken on about $125 billion in debt to fund its data centre build-out.Oracle, meanwhile, is pitching Jupiter as an economic boost for New Mexico. Earlier this month, the company said the campus is projected to generate more than $13 billion in economic impact and support over 3,100 jobs in the county once fully operational.

So far, 1,230 New Mexico residents have worked on the site.Investors will now look to Oracle's upcoming investor day for clarity. Bank of America analysts expect updates on the company's major data centre projects, along with signs of whether Oracle can back its fiscal 2030 revenue targets as the cost of capital rises.Thiagarajan's comments came on the same day Oracle expanded its collaboration with OpenAI, bringing ChatGPT and Codex into its applications.You use AI every day.

Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.