Behind-the-Meter Power Draws $700 Million Bet as AI Demand Surges

The size of this Neuberger Specialty Finance commitment to AI infrastructure developer Crusoe echoes major private equity shifts to fund construction of behind-the-meter, microgrid and off-grid power capacity during this era of utility-scale grid constraints. Blackstone, KKR, Brookfield and ArcLight Capital Partners have announced even larger fiscal commitments to dedicated energy infrastructure.

Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor

Oct. 28, 2026

3 min read

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Key Highlights

Crusoe is planning more than six gigawatts of AI infrastructure and is pursuing off-grid power to avoid lengthy grid interconnection queues.
Crusoe has raised $3.9 billion in a Series F round and has built data centers for OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
Goldman Sachs forecasts that global electricity demand from AI and cloud computing could reach 84 gigawatts by 2027.

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A wing of private investment giant Neuberger is taking a potential $700 million educated gamble that behind-the-meter power projects, perhaps even microgrids, will proliferate in the currently growing age of energy-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) factories.

Neuberger Specialty Finance (NBSF) earlier this month announced the $700 million financing facility for AI infrastructure developer Crusoe. The money will fund purchase of power infrastructure to directly energize Crusoe-built and owned AI factories, according to the release.

The size of this commitment echoes major private equity shifts to finance construction of behind-the-meter, microgrid and off-grid power capacity during this era of utility-scale grid constraints. Blackstone, KKR, Brookfield and ArcLight Capital Partners have announced even larger fiscal commitments to dedicated energy infrastructure in this perceived Industrial Compute Age.

Feeding hungry AI factories

The Neuberger Specialty Finance partnership with Crusoe will help fund the latter’s needs to energize at least part of more than six gigawatts of AI infrastructure planned so far. The shift to off-grid prime power will circumnavigate lengthy grid interconnection queues, according to the companies.

"Crusoe is building AI factories at a pace and scale the market has never seen, and that requires financing partners who can move with the same urgency," said Nick Sammut, Senior Vice President, Strategic Finance and Corporate Development at Crusoe, in a statement. "NBSF recognizes the value of our power equipment and the mission-critical role it plays in scaling our power solutions and structured a facility that lets us secure long-lead power generation assets aligned with development timelines.”

In separate financing, Crusoe closed a $3.9 billion Series F round in September and is at a nearly $31 billion valuation, according to reports. Crusoe has built supercomputing data centers for OpenAI, Microsoft and Google in Texas and is planning facilities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Colorado and Norway.

The NBSF financing platform led by Peter Sterling has invested more than $16 billion across sectors including healthcare, banking and data centers. More than $1 billion in asset-based financing deals are allocated to AI data centers with partners such as NVIDIA and Perk.

“We’re excited to deepen our strategic partnership with a top-tier operator like Crusoe,” said Sean Hinze, managing director at NBSF. “We see significant value in the power generation assets supporting Crusoe’s growth, especially as behind-the-meter power becomes increasingly important to the AI buildout.”

More to come. . .

Goldman Sachs in a market forecast last year predicted that global electricity demand from AI and cloud-based computing could grow 40% to 84 GW as early as 2027 and perhaps more than 100 GW additional capacity by the mid-2030s. The processing workloads demanded by AI should raise power density at data centers to about 175 kW per square foot in the next year, according to Goldman Sachs.

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About the Author

Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor

Managing Editor

For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

I’ve spent the last 18 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.

I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 36-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.

Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.