The scale of AI capex has become so large that even mega-cap balance sheets are looking outside public markets to keep spending. Meta just tapped Pimco and Blue Owl for $29 billion in financing to fund a massive Louisiana data center build—$26 billion in debt and $3 billion in equity—after a hiring spree that poached niche AI talent from competitors at price tags running into the hundreds of millions per head. This comes on top of similar private capital partnerships by Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI, proving that the AI race is driving expenditures and borrowing. For investors, the pivot to private credit is a risk that cash burn could eventually outpace returns if revenue growth doesn’t scale fast enough.