Story
September 28, 2026
Oracle’s New Mexico AI Bet Is Running Into a Power Reality Check
Oracle and its development partners portray the notice as routine protection for a vast, still-committed project. Investors and critics see it as a warning that the AI construction boom is colliding with the slower realities of financing, infrastructure and local approval.
Project Jupiter was unveiled as a flagship of Stargate, the AI infrastructure effort launched by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank with President Donald Trump early in his second term. The planned New Mexico campus is designed for 2.45 gigawatts of computing capacity, but its schedule depends on gas-fired fuel cells, a delayed Energy Transfer pipeline and a pending air-quality permit. Residents and environmental groups have also turned the project into a local political flashpoint.1
Those pressures came into sharper view Thursday, when Oracle sent a force majeure notice to Stack Infrastructure, the Blue Owl Capital-owned developer of the campus. The notice does not mean Oracle is walking away. Rather, it preserves the company’s ability to delay payments if the facility misses its 2028 completion target.
Oracle has insisted that the legal maneuver is not a timetable change. “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” the company said, adding that it remained “fully committed to New Mexico.” Blue Owl struck the same note, saying the notice did not alter the financial commitments attached to the multiyear project.2
Wall Street heard a more cautious message. Oracle shares fell roughly 4% to 5% after the disclosure, while analysts focused on what the notice says about execution risk. RBC Capital Markets said it signaled that Oracle’s own risk assessment had shifted enough to require legal protection; the firm’s ability to turn AI contracts into revenue rests on delivering scarce computing capacity on time.3
The concern is magnified by the financing behind the boom. Project Jupiter helped support about $18 billion in loans, while Oracle has borrowed heavily and committed to future data-center payments before sites are complete. Oracle’s long-dated bonds traded at 77 cents on the dollar, and credit-default-swap costs rose after the report.4
For Oracle, the notice is a sensible contingency plan. For investors, it is a reminder that AI’s promised revenue still has to clear the less glamorous hurdles of electricity, permits and construction.