80% of earnings growth is now dependent upon the infinite extrapolation of Artificial Intelligence.

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Charles Schwab — July 14 2026
Information Technology expected to drive more than half of 2026 earnings growth
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/navigating-global-earnings-boom

Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡
@shanaka86
JUST IN: Anthropic is reported to be paying Volta 10 billion dollars over 6 years. Volta is paying Bitdeer 4.7 billion over 16 years for the building it goes in.

So a company that did not exist in any meaningful form last year collects roughly double the money in a bit over a third of the time, and still owes rent for a decade after its only disclosed customer contract expires. That 10-year gap is the actual product being sold here.

Bitdeer’s own release, out today, is precise. Its subsidiary executed a 16-year colocation and services lease with Volta Tydal AS, delivering 121 IT megawatts supported by roughly 133 gross megawatts at Tydal in Norway, worth about 4.7 billion dollars over the base term and up to 8 billion across 24 years if an 8-year option is taken. Phase 1 targets 31 December 2026 and phase 2 targets 31 March 2027. Bitdeer keeps 100% ownership of the campus and issued no equity in the deal. The end customer is described only as a leading AI lab, with Dell as technology provider. Bloomberg’s reporting supplies the name and the other half of the structure.

Then comes the line that explains everything. Volta’s obligations are anticipated to be backed by letters of credit arranged by affiliates of J.P. Morgan and another top-tier institution, totalling approximately 1.3 billion dollars, and Bitdeer retains the right to terminate if Volta misses milestones tied to that credit backstop. Bitdeer is not underwriting Volta. It is underwriting the banks standing behind Volta, and it wrote itself an exit if the banks do not show up.

Which is exactly why Volta raised 300 million dollars at a 2.4 billion valuation on the same day. A thinly capitalised intermediary cannot sign a 4.7 billion dollar 16-year liability on its own balance sheet. The equity is not really the funding. The letters of credit are.

Set it beside the pattern already on the record. Meta moved a 14 billion dollar data centre into a vehicle where BlackRock funds own 80%, keeping the lease and a residual value guarantee near 13 billion. Big Tech bond order coverage fell from nearly 5 times in February to under 2 by July. Senior capital did not walk away from the AI buildout. It rewrote the terms and moved the exposure into structures that do not sit plainly on anyone’s balance sheet.

Honesty about scale, because it matters. At 133 megawatts this is small for Anthropic, which has disclosed commitments including up to 5 gigawatts with Amazon and multi-gigawatt arrangements with Google and Broadcom. This is clear diversification into hydro-powered European capacity, not a pivot. The 6-year and 10 billion dollar terms come from reporting rather than any party’s confirmation.

The structure is what deserves attention. Compute is being financed on 16-year real estate paper against 6-year customer contracts, through companies whose main asset is a bank guarantee. Somebody owns the decade after the contract ends, sitting in a hall of chips that will be 2 generations obsolete. Right now nobody has said who.


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