AI data center financing welcomes key developments! Fermi (FRMI.US) joins hands with AMD (AMD.US) to receive credit support, and the stock price rose sharply at the beginning of the session

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Fermi (FRMI.US), which focuses on AI hyperscale data center development, said on Tuesday that it has signed a credit support agreement with AMD (AMD.US) to support a lease arrangement for the first phase of its energy and artificial intelligence facility Project Matador Park in Texas, marking a key step in obtaining financing for the project. Boosted by this news, as of press time, Fermi's US stock market rose 18% at the beginning of Tuesday.

Under the cooperation agreement signed by the two parties, Fermi will provide land, licenses, water resources, power equipment, and fiber optic network infrastructure, while AMD will provide credit support and computing technology. The two companies also signed an agreement clarifying their partnership and setting out the framework for future expansion, which will expand the total power capacity up to 650 megawatts.

Fermi said that Project Matador's related assets have been secured or long-term lease agreements have been signed. Up to now, the project's construction investment has exceeded 1.5 billion US dollars. The company anticipates that the project will eventually be gradually expanded to around 17 gigawatts, but only if a legally binding agreement is signed with the customer.

Mathew Hein, senior vice president of enterprise development at AMD, said, “The pace of AI innovation is driving unprecedented demand for computing power and the large-scale data center infrastructure that supports it. Partnering with Fermi is an important step in expanding infrastructure capacity, enabling us to bring the next generation of AI solutions to market. Together, we are enabling customers to deploy AMD-powered AI infrastructure on a large scale and supporting our continued data center growth momentum.”

It's worth mentioning that Fermi announced in August that Project Matador Park had signed its first binding customer lease with AI cloud provider TensorWave. According to a statement issued by Fermi, the lease was signed between Fermi's subsidiary Fermi Campus 1 LLC and TensorWave TEX1, LLC, a subsidiary of TensorWave. The first phase covers a facility supported by a total power capacity of 222 megawatts and is expected to generate total contract revenue of approximately $6.5 billion over an initial period of 15 years. The lease comes with the right to expand two additional data centers, and if fully exercised, the cooperation between the two parties will expand to over 650 MW in three phases.

TensorWave, the lessee of this lease, is an AI cloud provider headquartered in Las Vegas that operates one of the world's largest all-AMD GPU clouds. The company completed Series B financing of US$350 million co-led by AMD Ventures and Magnetar Capital in June 2026, with a valuation of US$1.55 billion.

TensorWave currently operates three data centers in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Florida. It has locked in over 2 gigawatts of long-term data center capacity and has signed leases for a total capacity of 500 megawatts. TensorWave CEO Darrick Horton said, “Our customers require hundreds of thousands of AMD Instinct GPUs in total, and we need a reliable timeline. Fermi has integrated electricity, land and permits and is able to deliver at this pace.”

Fermi said in an announcement at the time that it is expected that part of the lease obligations will be guaranteed by “a leading global AI company.” The market generally speculates that the guarantor is AMD. The reason is that AMD Ventures holds shares in the TensorWave+ exclusive supply relationship, but neither AMD nor Fermi have confirmed it at the time. Fermi officially only refers to the counterparty as an “investment-grade counterparty.”

Now that the suspense has finally been revealed, Fermi has confirmed that it has signed a credit support agreement with AMD to support the first phase of Project Matador's leasing arrangement. AMD's move essentially uses its own balance sheet to endorse a 15-year payment obligation for downstream customers (TensorWave), similar to a “supplier financing” structure. This guarantee allowed Fermi to obtain project financing and promote the construction of the computer room, while TensorWave's installation of tens of thousands of Instinct GPUs enabled AMD to earn back chip revenue.

The tripartite collaboration will also help strengthen AMD's competitive position in AI infrastructure. But it is undeniable that at the same time, this will also heighten market concerns about “circular financing” and “add fuel” to the empty arguments of AI transactions.