JPMorgan leads 5 billion AI loan for Volta at 11 percent yield

JPMorgan is leading a $5 billion leveraged loan for Volta Infrastructure Holdings, a new player in the AI cloud sector. The deal is structured at a discount in the high 90s with a spread of roughly 6.25 to 6.50 percentage points over the benchmark, resulting in an 11% all-in yield at current base rates. This makes it one of the higher-cost borrowings in the market. Both Volta and JPMorgan have declined to comment on the matter.

The loan is divided into two tranches. The larger portion, about $3.7 billion, finances roughly 36,000 Nvidia GPUs, while the smaller tranche, around $1.3 billion, cash collateralizes a letter of credit tied to a data center lease. The funds will be kept in a dedicated account to cover lease payments to Bitdeer for use of the facility. The loans are structured to fully amortize, meaning the principal will be paid down over time.

The proceeds will help fund a Norwegian data center complex managed by Volta in partnership with Bitdeer Technologies Group. Anthropic has committed to a six-year arrangement to secure compute capacity at this location. Volta was founded earlier this year by Ricard Boada and Sofia Gumuzio, both former executives within Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.'s infrastructure unit. Bitdeer is known for its Bitcoin mining operations and data center management.

The loan's unrated status is unusual for this type of leveraged loan, which typically excludes many collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), the dominant purchasers in this asset class. A lender call took place on Monday, and commitments are due by October 14. JPMorgan began canvassing investors in August.