Core42, the sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure arm of Abu Dhabi’s G42 Group, has arranged two structured trade finance facilities totalling US$550 million with global banking giant HSBC. The non-equity dilutive financing — split into a US$240 million tranche completed in February 2026 and a US$310 million tranche completed in May 2026 — will accelerate AI cloud and compute deployments across the United States and Europe. The deal signals growing institutional confidence in AI infrastructure as a bankable, industrial-grade asset class and reinforces Core42’s position as a leading sovereign AI infrastructure operator serving enterprise, government, and hyperscale customers worldwide.
Key Overview
- Deal Size: US$550 million in two structured trade finance facilities from HSBC
- Tranches: US$240 million (February 2026) and US$310 million (May 2026)
- Structure: Non-equity dilutive, preserving Core42’s existing ownership
- Purpose: Accelerate AI cloud and compute capacity buildouts tied to long-term contracted demand
- Geographic Focus: United States and Europe
- European HQ: Dublin, Ireland, with active deployments in Italy and France
- US Footprint: Facilities in California, Texas, Minnesota, and New York
- Parent Company: G42 Group, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE
Abu Dhabi-headquartered Core42, a subsidiary of the G42 Group specialising in sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure, has announced the successful arrangement of US$550 million in structured trade finance facilities with HSBC. The financing is designed to accelerate the company’s AI cloud and compute deployments across the United States and Europe, marking one of the most significant trade finance arrangements in the AI infrastructure sector to date.
The facilities were completed in two phases — a US$240 million facility finalised in February 2026 and a US$310 million facility concluded in May 2026. Both have been purpose-built to align with the capital intensity and deployment cycles that characterise large-scale AI cloud infrastructure. Crucially, the financing is non-equity dilutive, meaning it preserves Core42’s existing ownership structure while broadening its capital stack and capacity for expansion.
Banks Embrace AI Infrastructure as an Asset Class
The HSBC facilities carry broader significance beyond Core42’s balance sheet. As the AI industry transitions from experimental deployments to mission-critical, enterprise-grade workloads, the deal signals that major financial institutions are growing comfortable lending against contracted AI compute demand. Structured trade finance — traditionally used for physical commodities and large-scale industrial projects — is increasingly being applied to cloud and compute infrastructure, reflecting the tangible, long-duration nature of these investments.
Neha Gupta, Chief Financial Officer of Core42, framed the arrangement as a watershed moment. She described the facilities as reflecting growing institutional recognition of AI architecture as long-duration, industrial-grade capacity, adding that the HSBC financing will strengthen Core42’s ability to deploy capacity at speed across the US and Europe while maintaining financial discipline. As enterprises and governments scale mission-critical AI workloads, Gupta stressed, the underlying platforms must be resilient and built to support sustained demand.
Shaikha AlMarri, Head of Banking for the UAE at HSBC, noted that the structures are designed to support current deployments while also establishing a robust framework that enables streamlined access to funding for future initiatives.
A Growing Footprint Across the United States
The financing arrives at a time when Core42’s US expansion is already well advanced. The company’s American presence is underpinned by the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership, a government-to-government agreement under which the UAE commits to invest one dollar in US AI infrastructure for every dollar it invests in Middle East data centres built on American technology.
Core42’s US operations are already substantial. In partnership with California-based chip company Cerebras Systems, the firm has built the Condor Galaxy network, a series of high-performance AI supercomputers now delivering 20 exaFLOPs of AI compute across facilities in California, Texas, and Minnesota. In November 2025, Core42 commissioned its Maximus-01 supercomputer at TeraWulf’s Lake Mariner campus in Buffalo, New York. Powered by over 9,000 AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs and delivering 114.50 petaflops of performance, the system was ranked the world’s 20th most powerful supercomputer and is configured for large-scale AI training and inference.
Most recently, Bloomberg reported that Core42 has leased 20 megawatts of capacity in a converted office building at 1001 Third Avenue South in downtown Minneapolis. The six-storey property was transformed from commercial office space by Virginia-based developer Legacy Investing, which invested more than $70 million in improvements in 2025 alone.
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Europe: Dublin Headquarters and Sovereign AI Deployments
Core42’s European ambitions are advancing in parallel. The company established its European headquarters in Dublin in December 2025, announced at the Investopia global investment summit. Registered as Core42 Technology Operations Limited, the Dublin office serves as the regional hub for customer delivery, engineering leadership, regulatory engagement, and ecosystem partnerships.
The Dublin base builds on a series of sovereign compute initiatives across the continent. In France, Core42 partnered with Data One and Oreus to deliver a national-scale AI infrastructure deployment in Grenoble supporting high-performance enterprise and public sector workloads. In Italy, the company collaborated with Domyn to build what has been described as Europe’s largest AI compute cluster, establishing a foundation for the region’s AI-first economy.
Talal M. Al Kaissi, Chief Executive Officer of Core42, has stated that Europe is a central part of the company’s global expansion strategy, noting that the Dublin headquarters provides an operational base to support growing demand and to work more closely with customers and partners scaling production-grade AI across key sectors.
Sovereign Cloud: A Distinct Competitive Position
What distinguishes Core42 from conventional hyperscale cloud providers is its sovereign AI model — a framework that combines the scale and technical capability of a hyperscale operator with data governance, sovereignty protections, and local partnership structures that enterprise and government customers increasingly require. The company partners with global technology leaders including Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, and Cerebras to offer access to next-generation accelerators, models, and architectures.
The sovereign approach has gained particular traction in the UAE, where Core42’s Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, supports Abu Dhabi’s government digital transformation strategy. Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42 in 2024, and the two companies have since deepened their partnership around secure, compliant cloud infrastructure for regulated industries.
Meanwhile, G42’s broader ambitions continue to expand. The group is building the Stargate UAE campus, the international flagship of the $500 billion Stargate joint venture involving OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi sovereign investment vehicle MGX. The first phase — a 200 megawatt compute cluster powered by NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 systems — is expected to come online by the end of 2026.
Governance and Cross-Border Discipline
Roopal Jobanputra, General Counsel at Core42, emphasised that the HSBC facilities are structured with the governance and cross-border clarity required for mission-critical infrastructure. This focus on regulatory and operational discipline is particularly relevant as Core42 scales across multiple jurisdictions with differing data sovereignty, compliance, and security frameworks.
The company has also been strengthening its leadership bench to support international growth. In March 2026, Core42 appointed former Microsoft executive Sherif Tawfik as Chief Business Officer, and in April 2026, it brought on former Google executive Emma Cloney to lead international expansion — reflecting a deliberate strategy to recruit seasoned global technology leaders as the business scales.
Looking Ahead
As AI transitions from pilot programmes to production-grade deployment, access to structured trade finance is emerging as a strategic differentiator for infrastructure operators. Core42’s ability to mobilise $550 million in institutional capital from a tier-one global bank underscores both the maturity of its business model and the growing alignment between traditional finance and the AI infrastructure sector. With contracted demand, operational depth across three continents, and a disciplined capital framework, Core42 is positioning itself as the sovereign alternative in an AI infrastructure market increasingly dominated by a handful of American hyperscalers.
Sources: Data Center Dynamics / Consultancy-me.com / Blockspace / Intelligent CIO / Middle East AI News / The Next Web / ITP.net / Core42.ai / Enterprise IT World MEA / The Finance 360 / Enterprise AM
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