How many large US AI data-centre campuses complete publicly documented distressed debt restructurings between 6 November 2026 and 31 December 2030

My most likely value for qualifying campus restructurings is zero, with a 31% probability, because backstops from Meta, Google, and Nvidia alongside Core Scientific's ring-fenced rents insulate campus creditors from tenant distress.

AI data-centre campuses are financed through combinations of tenant contracts, project debt, external equity and guarantees. This forecast measures completed debt restructurings across a fixed class of large, already-financed US campuses, rather than restricting the population to a hand-picked list. Background examples include Hyperion, Helios Phase II, Barber Lake and Lake Mariner. Financing mechanisms are described in https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/4c_Van-Nieuwerburgh.pdf .

Count distinct physically located US data-centre campuses that satisfy all the following baseline conditions using information publicly available by 23:59 UTC on 5 November 2026: (1) at least 100 MW of critical IT capacity is subject to executed tenant or dedicated-compute customer contracts expressly identified as serving AI workloads or dedicated GPU machine-learning services; and (2) at least USD 500 million of debt financing has closed whose disclosed collateral, repayment cash flows or specified use of proceeds is tied to that campus. General corporate debt without an identified campus connection is insufficient. Capacity merely available for expansion, unsigned proposals, generic HPC capacity without an identified AI use, and gross utility MW presented without a documented IT conversion do not establish the capacity threshold.

A campus counts once if, from 00:00 UTC on 6 November 2026 through 23:59 UTC on 31 December 2030, debt covered by condition (2) undergoes either an effective court-approved insolvency restructuring or a completed out-of-court distressed exchange or amendment. An out-of-court transaction must impose a reduction in principal, interest or contractual repayment value, or defer scheduled payments, and be explicitly described by the issuer, a creditor or S&P, Moody's or Fitch as distressed or intended to avoid a payment default. Routine market refinancing, voluntary early repayments, covenant waivers without a payment concession, new equity injections and ordinary lease renegotiations do not count. A bankruptcy filing or negotiations alone do not count until a qualifying restructuring becomes effective.

Buildings and phases on the same named campus count as one campus. For a financing covering multiple physically separate campuses, count each qualifying campus only where that financing is explicitly documented as applying to it. Count only the first qualifying restructuring per campus. Determine the event from public court records, regulatory filings, issuer or lender announcements, or rating-agency publications, with Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal as fallback confirmation. Use evidence published by 31 March 2031. An event lacking such public documentation by that date is not counted; the outcome is a count of publicly documented events, not undisclosed private restructurings.