Dutch bank ING is reportedly looking to sell off roughly US$ 500 million of data center loans amid fears that the Democratic Party will stall US data center projects after sweeping the midterm elections last week.
As reported by Bloomberg, which spoke with people familiar with the matter, ING is taking offers for dozens of loans through a bid-wanted-in-competition process. The loans on offer include US$ 25 million in financing for a data center site in New Mexico that forms part of OpenAI, SoftBank Group, and Oracle’s Stargate project.
According to the report, ING is looking to offload debt tied to Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne. Bids must be submitted by November 19, 2026, and must be at least US$ 10 million in size. The portfolio is made up exclusively of data center loans, highlighting the pessimism spreading throughout the market of late.
However, following a brief tumble on Thursday, November 5, 2026, that spread to Asian and European markets, by Friday, November 6, 2026, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 had recovered somewhat. Reuters reported last week that the Nasdaq Composite had gained 1.1 percent and the S&P 500 rose 0.31 percent following losses that wiped out trillions of dollars.
Voters in several US states, including Maine, Texas, and Ohio, have elected governors and other officials who ran on promises of slowing or outright pausing data center developments. As a result, the market retreated on fears that new officials would make good on those promises, throwing a wrench into the trillion-dollar AI machine that lives and dies on capacity being built out.
“Most of the disruption of the AI buildout will not probably occur but it’s just the uncertainty of the change in government from Republican-led to Democratic-led, not only at the federal level but the state, local levels,” Gerry Sparrow, Sparrow Capital Management president and portfolio manager, told Reuters. “The volatility around elections or any political event, whether it be war or terrorist attack, is always going to disrupt the market.”
There are fears on Wall Street that the credit market is nearing the roof of how much AI debt it can absorb and questions are being asked as to whether revenue can justify the mammoth spending taking place.
Before the sell-off, Arizton Advisory & Intelligence projected that the US data center market would grow from a value of US$ 298.97 billion in 2025 to US$ 494.49 billion by 2031. That projection could change drastically if elected officials decide that data center buildouts should be slowed or stopped.