Oracle Corp, to be clear, has not cancelled anything. Yes, Bloomberg posted today that it has sent a notice to a unit of Blue Owl Capital citing ‘force majeure’ on its lease obligations starting 2028 for Project Jupiter, reporting that:... Oracle is seeking to assert its contractual position if the build out is delayed. Still, it’s not certain that such a maneuver would free Oracle from its previously agreed financial obligations.

Project Jupiter is part of the massive Stargate infrastructure buildout that readers might recall as being one of the bigger blobs on the cool AI-interconnection-chart. And, as Main FT reported a week ago, around $18bn of loans tied to the development are trading, if not distressed, then certainly ‘stressed’ territory of ca 90c in the dollar.

It does seem a bit rough that Oracle might be on the hook for hefty rental payments starting 2028 as anchor tenant of a massive data centre complex if the complex is just a hole in the ground. And efforts to transform the building site into a humming mass of electricity-hungry tech wizardry do seem to be running foul of both grassroots opposition and local government signoffs. If elected, New Mexico’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland has said she will pause all new data centres.

Alphaville isn’t sure whether this means half-built ones too. So with so much development risk in the air, it seems fair enough that Oracle’s lawyers should be reminding everyone how not-on-the-hook they reckon they are.