Six financing announcements crossed the wire on October 22. None of them is a venture round. That’s the point. The AI build-out has moved past the stage where equity pays for it, and the money now comes as bank lines, bridge loans, equipment leases and government checks with strings attached. Read the headline number on each and you learn very little. Read the tenor, the rate and who carries the risk, and the picture gets clearer.

Reporting on Meta’s Hyperion data center in Louisiana describes a secretive negotiation process that produced tax breaks and proceeded with limited public input. The specifics are local. The pattern is not, and it is worth separating the two, because the mechanics described in Louisiana are the standard operating procedure for large data center siting across the United States. How the process is designed to work Large facility negotiations typically begin under a code name, with the identity of the company withheld from local officials and the public through non-disclosure agreements signed by economic development staff.