JPMorgan and Goldman Underwrite Only $1.3 Billion of $5 Billion Volta AI Loan, People Familiar Say

Since Volta Infrastructure Holdings and its bankers first took the financing to market in August and September, the price has gone up and the banks' own risk has gone down. The deal launched in its current form on Oct. 9, and commitments are due Wednesday, Oct. 14.

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are leading a package of about $5.012 billion. It has two pieces: a $1.3 billion first-lien term loan C and a $3.712 billion GPU term loan.

People familiar with the deal say the banks underwrote the $1.3 billion term loan but did not underwrite the roughly $3.7 billion chip loan. They asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. JPMorgan, Goldman and Volta declined to comment.

What underwriting means here

Underwriting is a promise to the borrower that the money arrives whether or not investors buy the debt. The bank carries the risk if the loan sells below the agreed price or does not sell at all.

That is how most buyout financing works. Debt commitments for AI deals are more unusual, according to the people familiar. They said banks remember 2022, when markets seized up as rates rose and lenders were stuck holding hung debt.

The same people said funding new or untested AI companies has forced lenders into less conventional structures. The banks, they said, are trying to avoid being caught out.

The pricing

The loan is marketed at 625 to 650 basis points over the benchmark rate, with an original issue discount of 97 to 98 cents on the dollar. Bloomberg puts the all-in yield at about 11%. Crypto Briefing calculates 11.21% to 11.75%.

Crypto Briefing also reported that the earlier August and September marketing came at roughly SOFR plus 500 basis points. The new terms add about 125 to 150 basis points of spread plus the discount.

The deal is unrated. That would typically keep collateralized loan obligations, the biggest buyers of leveraged loans, from purchasing it, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg describes it as a new high in all-in yield for AI-related leveraged loans. Earlier deals by CoreWeave, Lambda and Crusoe priced at lower borrowing costs.

What the money buys

About $3.7 billion is earmarked for roughly 36,000 Nvidia GPUs. The $1.3 billion piece supports a lease on a data center campus in Norway that Volta will manage with Bitdeer Technologies Group, a bitcoin miner that operates data centers.

Accounts differ on the mechanics. Bloomberg says the term loan will fund lease payments to Bitdeer. Crypto Briefing says it will fund a letter of credit backing the lease.

Anthropic has signed a six-year agreement for compute capacity at the site, according to people familiar with the arrangement. That signed customer is the strongest piece of support in the package.

Who Volta is

Volta was founded this year by Ricard Boada and Sofia Gumuzio, two former executives in Brookfield Asset Management's infrastructure business. Crypto Briefing reported that the company raised $300 million in equity earlier in 2026 at a $2.4 billion valuation. Against a $5 billion loan, that equity base is small.

The same account lists the lender concerns: a limited operating history, no corporate guarantees behind the debt, and higher leverage than peers such as CoreWeave.

Borrowers with investment-grade backing pay far less. A $35 billion debt package backstopped by Broadcom to help Anthropic access tensor processing units is the example Bloomberg cites. Neoclouds, which rent out chips and other AI infrastructure, have no such parent and go to the leveraged loan market.

The wider borrowing wave

Bloomberg data show companies have borrowed about $625 billion over the past two years for data centers and other AI investments. The AI build-out is expected to cost nearly $5 trillion by the end of 2030.

Volta's terms test whether lenders will keep financing the smaller, unguaranteed end of that build-out. They also show how much compensation they want for doing it.

The next data point arrives Oct. 14, when commitments are due. If the $3.7 billion chip loan fills at the marketed terms, the banks will have placed it without carrying it. If it does not, Volta has no underwriter on that piece to guarantee the cash.