Infrastructure debt for data centre development is typically provided by a specialist subset of the lending market — infrastructure debt funds, development banks, and commercial banks with active exposure to the data centre sector. These lenders understand the asset class, the development timeline, and the risk characteristics of data centre construction in a way that generalist commercial lenders do not. Approaching the wrong lenders wastes time and damages credibility with the lenders that actually have appetite for the deal.

Lender requirements for data centre development debt are specific. Committed offtake — evidence of signed or near-signed agreements with creditworthy tenants — is typically a requirement for construction financing. This is the financing gate that the Capital Unlock mechanism addresses where a developer has land, power, and a credible construction plan but no signed offtake. Technical due diligence on the development programme, the operator’s track record, and the M&E specification is standard. And the credit story must be packaged in a format that a lender’s credit committee can approve — not the developer’s own narrative of the project’s potential, but a structured information memorandum that presents the risk factors alongside the opportunity.

Armason’s debt financing process begins with capital requirement scoping — establishing exactly what is being financed, the target loan-to-value or loan-to-cost ratio, and the preferred tenor. This scoping stage determines which lenders are relevant and what the credit story must address. The information memorandum is then built around the specific lender requirements — offtake contracts, operator track record, technical specification, and construction cost plan — into a document that can move directly into lender due diligence without requiring a second round of information gathering.