Wall Street is turning AI’s massive electricity appetite into a $61 billion bond market

According to CryptoSlate, Wall Street is packaging operating data centers, tenant contracts, and power infrastructure into bonds repaid from customer revenues. Outstanding data-center securitizations expanded from roughly $4 billion in 2020 to $61 billion through July 2026, based on research from the Structured Finance Association drawing on Barclays data. The structure turns scarce, deliverable electricity into a credit factor alongside tenant quality, operating costs, and property value.

Investors still face uncertain power needs, tenant concentration, costly retrofits, and refinancing risk as facilities and technology evolve. In February, S&P assigned an A(sf) rating to Sabey Data Center Issuer's $475 million 2026-1 notes. Additionally, the SEC's Office of Structured Finance agreed that qualifying data-center securitizations fall outside the Exchange Act definition of an asset-backed security, potentially reducing issuance costs and compliance obligations such as mandatory risk retention rules. Morgan Stanley estimates global data-center spending could reach $2.9 trillion through 2028, with external financing required for about $1.5 trillion.