JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have underwritten $1.3 billion of a $5 billion loan sale for AI startup Volta Infrastructure Holdings, leaving a $3.7 billion chip loan without their underwriting, Bloomberg reported on 13 October.
Key points
- The underwritten loan is intended to fund payments to Bitdeer for a Norway data centre.
- The chip loan is intended to buy about 36,000 Nvidia graphics processing units.
- Volta’s debt is being offered at a yield of about 11%, and commitments are due on 14 October.
Volta’s $3.7 billion chip loan
JPMorgan and Goldman are leading the offering, but their underwriting covers only the $1.3 billion term loan. People familiar with the deal said that the banks left the chip loan outside their underwriting to limit their exposure to potential losses. The distinction matters for Volta: an underwrite gives a borrower a lender’s commitment to provide financing even if investors do not buy the debt.
That commitment also puts the lender at risk. If debt cannot be sold, or sells for less than the price agreed with the borrower, the underwriter can be left holding it or take a loss. Lenders generally underwrite an entire debt package. In Volta’s sale, the banks have taken that commitment on the term loan but not on the larger loan intended to pay for chips.
Volta’s debt is being pitched at a yield of about 11%, one of the highest borrowing costs in the leveraged loan market used to finance AI, according to Bloomberg. The transaction is unrated, a status that would typically prevent collateralised loan obligations from buying the loans. Those investment vehicles are major purchasers of this type of debt.
Bank caution also reflects losses on debt that lenders could not sell in 2022, when markets seized up during rapid interest-rate increases. People familiar with Volta’s deal said that financing newer AI companies has prompted less conventional underwriting arrangements as banks try to limit the risk carried on their balance sheets.
Bitdeer’s Norway site and Nvidia chips
The $1.3 billion term loan is intended to cover lease payments to Bitdeer Technologies Group for use of a data centre in Norway. The $3.7 billion chip loan is intended to buy about 36,000 graphics processing units made by Nvidia. The borrowing therefore separates payments for use of the facility from the purchase of the computing equipment it will house.
Volta plans to finance a data centre complex in Norway that it will manage in partnership with Bitdeer, a Bitcoin miner that operates data centres. Volta is a neocloud company, renting customers the use of chips and other AI computing infrastructure. Bloomberg attributed its account of Anthropic’s signed six-year contract for computing capacity at the site to unnamed sources.
Ricard Boada and Sofia Gumuzio, former executives in Brookfield Asset Management’s infrastructure business, founded Volta earlier in 2026. The company aims to make Nvidia chips easier for AI labs and smaller startups to finance. Its proposed borrowing covers both the equipment it plans to acquire and the payments needed to use the Norway facility.
CoreWeave, Lambda and Crusoe borrowed for chips
Other neocloud companies, including CoreWeave, Lambda and Crusoe, have secured financing for chip purchases. Their earlier transactions carried lower borrowing costs than Volta’s proposed debt. The comparison places Volta’s roughly 11% yield alongside existing loans for similar equipment rather than treating borrowing for AI chips as a new proposition for lenders.
JPMorgan began sounding out investors about a Volta loan in August. The sale now puts the term loan backed by the banks alongside a larger chip loan whose placement depends on investor commitments. Representatives for JPMorgan, Goldman and Volta declined to comment.
Volta’s loan commitments are due on 14 October.
