Who is actually lending against what: a $19 billion lease, a $3.5 to $4.0 billion shell, and a Google backstop that starts late

Portfolio sample. First-person analysis from public documents only: TeraWulf's 8-K and press releases of 4 and 6 November 2026, its July 2026 8-K, its filings with the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, and Fluor's 4 November release. Every figure is attributed. Arithmetic that is mine is labelled as mine.

When a project finance headline says "$19 billion", the first job of a lender's adviser is to ask which of the three or four different pools of money it describes. TeraWulf's announcement on 4 November 2026 is a good case, because the documents are public and they do not describe one deal. They describe a landlord building a shell, a tenant funding its own computers, a contractor sharing some of the construction risk, and a hyperscaler standing behind the tenant from a date that is not the first day of rent.

What the headline number is

TeraWulf announced credit support agreements with Google in connection with debt financing supporting "approximately $19 billion of contracted lease commitments" with Anthropic at its Justified Data Campus in Hawesville, Kentucky (press release, 4 November 2026). Its third-quarter release two days later puts it more precisely: about 401 MW of critical IT capacity, "approximately $19 billion of contracted revenue over the initial term" (6 November 2026). The initial term is 20 years, with two five-year renewal options, and Anthropic's rent starts on delivery of each data hall (8-K, 6 July and 4 November 2026).

So the $19 billion is rent, summed over twenty years, undiscounted, at a stated MW. It is not the size of a loan, it is not the cost of the project, and it does not tell you what the landlord keeps after paying for power and operations. The filings do not say whether it includes escalators or pass-throughs.

What the landlord is paying to build

The second number comes from a different document. In an energy plan filed with the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet in August 2026 (supplemented in September), TeraWulf's subsidiary Justified DataPower estimated its cost to construct the data-centre buildings and permanent site infrastructure at $3.5 to $4.0 billion. The same filing says the compute infrastructure, meaning the server racks, "will be funded by Anthropic at a cost of approximately $10 billion."

That sentence is the one I would underline. The lessee is spending about two and a half times the landlord's construction budget on the equipment that sits inside the shell. The landlord's lenders are not financing GPUs. They are financing a powered building, which is a very different collateral package from the one people picture when they read "AI data-centre debt".

Here is my arithmetic, using only the numbers above. Spread evenly, $19 billion over 20 years is about $0.95 billion a year, or roughly $2.4 million per MW of critical IT per year on 401 MW. Set against $3.5 to $4.0 billion of construction cost, that is about $8.7 to $10.0 million of cost per MW. An average annual rent of about a quarter of build cost sounds generous, but it is an average of an undiscounted headline. It ignores the ramp from late 2027 to the second quarter of 2028, any escalator, the cost of power and operations the landlord carries, and the cost of the financing itself. I would not publish a yield from it. I would use it for one purpose: to show why a lender regards this as a shell-and-power credit, with the question being how reliably the rent arrives, rather than whether the asset covers the loan.

What the contractor is carrying

Fluor signed a definitive engineering, procurement and construction contract for three data-centre buildings at the campus. TeraWulf describes it as "GMP-basis", a guaranteed maximum price. Fluor's own release says the contract is structured so that Fluor "is responsible for cost overruns up to a percentage of its profit," that it expects to book the award in the fourth quarter "upon finalization of pricing for the first two buildings," and that it began under a limited notice to proceed in March 2026, with early works already under way.

Read together, that means the price is capped, but the contractor's exposure to an overrun is tied to its profit on the job. Past that, the risk returns to the owner. A lender's technical adviser would want to know where that line sits, and the public documents do not say. They also do not say the price for the third building has been finalised, only that the first two are pending.

What Google is actually promising

The Google credit support agreement is the part most coverage compressed. From the 8-K: if Anthropic defaults on rent or becomes insolvent, then after notice from the landlord Google has the option to pay all rent currently due and assume the lease as tenant, or, "under certain circumstances", pay a termination fee and become entitled to acquire an equity interest in the landlord entity, Raylan. Google may also defer that election for a specified period, during which it pays unpaid and additional rent as it falls due. The termination fee amortises over a defined term after the agreement becomes effective.

Three features matter more than the headline.

It starts late. The backstop becomes effective as of the commencement date of the final data hall under each of the three leases (CB-1, CB-2 and CB-3). Delivery is phased from late 2027 to the second quarter of 2028. Until a given lease's last hall is delivered, the rent for that lease is supported by Anthropic's own credit and nothing else. The July 8-K expected that obligation "to be supported by an investment-grade credit", which is an expectation about Anthropic, not an undertaking by Google.

It is an option, not a guarantee of payment. A guarantee pays. This gives Google a choice between taking over the lease and paying a fee to leave and take equity. A lender should read the second route as a negotiated exit with a price, and ask what that price is on day one and how fast it falls, because the filing says only that it amortises.

It can fall away. The backstop terminates on conditions that include Anthropic, or an affiliate guaranteeing its obligations, achieving and maintaining certain investment-grade ratings for at least three months. For the borrower that is a feature, since the support is no longer needed once the tenant is rated. For a lender it means the protection is designed to disappear precisely when the tenant's credit is strongest, and the structure should be underwritten as if the rating test were a refinancing event.

What I would ask before lending

1. In each of the three leases, how many months pass between first rent and the final-hall commencement date, and how is that window financed?
2. What does the landlord owe if a hall is late: does rent start on delivery, as the filings say, and what remedies does the tenant have for delay?
3. Where does the Fluor overrun protection end, and who funds above it?
4. What is the termination fee at effectiveness, and what is its amortisation profile against the debt balance?
5. Which obligations of Anthropic does the backstop cover? The 8-K says "certain obligations", and that phrase needs to be read against the lease schedule.
6. Power: the energy plan describes an agreement for electric service for a 482 MW data centre with Kenergy and Big Rivers, under which TeraWulf must prepay or provide and maintain credit support for Big Rivers' capacity. That is a second credit-support obligation, to a different counterparty, that sits alongside the Google one.

None of these questions is exotic, and none is answered in the press release. They are the difference between a headline that says a hyperscaler stands behind the deal, and a credit file that says exactly when, for what, and at what price.

Sources: TeraWulf Inc. Form 8-K and exhibits 10.1 and 99.1, 4 November 2026; TeraWulf press release "TeraWulf Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results", 6 November 2026; TeraWulf Form 8-K, 6 July 2026; Energy Plan and Supplemental Energy Plan of Justified DataPower LLC submitted to the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, 14 August and 9 September 2026; Fluor Corporation press release, 4 November 2026. The arithmetic in the section on the landlord's build cost is the author's own simple averaging and is not a figure reported by any party.

Chris Romei is a strategy and finance consultant who worked on data-centre and digital-infrastructure commercial and technical due diligence for lenders and investors at Altman Solon.