Oracle market value loses millions; as notice sent on data center project in New Mexico 'surfaces', company told developer Blue Owl Capital that …

Oracle is taking legal steps to protect itself from accumulating expenses on a massive artificial intelligence (AI) data center in southern New Mexico, marking a sharp escalation for an infrastructure project mired in public opposition and regulatory hurdles. Citing individuals familiar with the matter, a report by Bloomberg says that the enterprise technology giant has sent a formal notice citing force majeure to the project’s developer, a unit of alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital. Following this development, Oracle’s shares fell 4%, losing millions of dollars from its market cap.The report notes that rather than walking away entirely as the anchor tenant, Oracle is seeking to defer contractual payments if the facility, internally named Project Jupiter, encounters further delays and misses its planned 2028 operational target.What is Force Majeure and understanding Oracle’s moveCompanies generally invoke force majeure to suspend or excuse contractual duties when uncontrollable events prevent performance. In this dispute, Oracle is asserting its contractual standing ahead of potential construction bottlenecks. However, it remains uncertain whether the maneuver will legally relieve Oracle of its earlier financial obligations.Addressing the situation publicly, an Oracle spokesperson affirmed the facility's target delivery, saying, “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule. We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.”The Stargate anchor and debtThe southern New Mexico facility was planned as a cornerstone of the broader Stargate AI infrastructure push. US President Donald Trump originally unveiled the venture alongside top executives from Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank Group, framing it during the early days of his second term as a historic investment unseen in modern tech history.Nearly two years later, the campus reportedly faces steep challenges. One of them is the massive energy scale. The hub was engineered to draw 2.45 gigawatts, which is equivalent to the steady electricity demand of roughly 1.8 million homes. The second is financing pressure as a syndicate of approximately 20 commercial banks backed the campus with an $18 billion construction loan, representing one of the largest debt packages financing the generative AI boom.Thirdly, even if deployed purely as a legal safeguard, Oracle's notice risks unnerving institutional debt holders. The debt backing the project is already trading at distressed levels below 90 cents on the dollar.The disclosure also highlights contractual vulnerabilities in hyperscale leases, where tech firms commonly reserve termination rights if developers miss committed handover dates. An earlier example occurred when Alphabet's Google contracted with Elon Musk's SpaceX for computing power through mid-2029 while retaining rights to exit if capacity failed to materialize on schedule.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.