Blue Owl Capital is not planning to provide financial backing to Oracle's planned data center in Saline Township, Michigan.

The data center project, valued at $10 billion, is being developed by Oracle, Related Digital, and OpenAI as part of the latter's Stargate project.

The campus is expected to have an IT capacity of 1GW, will be located on a 250-acre site – known as The Barn – and will consist of three 550,000 sq ft (51,097 sqm) single-story buildings, and reportedly use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce water use.

Construction is currently set to start in early 2026, though the project has faced some pushback from local residents.

The Financial Times reports that Oracle's biggest data center partner, Blue Owl, has declined to back the project.

Citing three people familiar with the matter, the FT reports that Blue Owl was in discussions with lenders and Oracle about investing in the data center project, but that negotiations stalled, and Blue Owl will no longer be involved.

Sources told FT that the lenders were pushing for stricter leasing and debt terms due to "shifting market sentiment" about the massive spending on AI infrastructure, as well as concerns about Oracle's growing debt. At the end of November, Oracle had some $105bn in debt, up nearly $78bn from the year prior. In September, the company was reportedly seeking a debt package of around $38bn, and sold some $18bn in bonds that same month. KeyBanc Capital Markets estimates that Oracle may need to borrow up to $100bn to fund the buildout.

Blackstone has reportedly stepped in and is now in discussions to be a financial partner for the project, but has not yet signed a deal.

Neither Blue Owl nor Blackstone was willing to provide a comment to the FT.

Oracle, however, told the publication: “Our development partner, Related Digital, selected the best equity partner from a competitive group of options, which in this instance was not Blue Owl... Final negotiations for their equity deal are moving forward on schedule and according to plan.”

Blue Owl has previously backed the Crusoe data center campus in Abilene, Texas, which is being leased to Oracle, which is then in turn leasing compute to OpenAI from the site, and is also involved in the New Mexico campus under development.

Oracle has had a challenging December thus far. Following the release of its earnings for the most recent quarter – which were undeniably strong, but apparently not enough to impress investors – the company saw its stock value dip some 10 percent. Shortly after, reports emerged that some of its data center projects for Stargate were facing delays, though Oracle has denied this.