May 17 (Reuters) - Specialized cloud services provider

CoreWeave is raising $7.5 billion in debt from financiers led by

Blackstone and Magnetar Capital to scale up its

infrastructure to meet rising artificial intelligence workloads,

it said on Friday.

The deal is one of the largest debt financing rounds for a

startup and adds firepower to CoreWeave's balance sheet as it

looks to double its number of data centers to 28 this year.

"The caliber of investors in this large debt financing round

is a powerful testament to ... the insatiable market appetite

for AI infrastructure," CEO and co-founder Michael Intrator

said.

Nvidia ( NVDA )-backed CoreWeave has raised more than $12

billion in equity and debt investments over the past 12 months,

including a $1.1-billion series C investment led by private

equity firm Coatue earlier this month.

CoreWeave was valued at $19 billion in that round, according

to a person familiar with the matter.

Coatue, Carlyle Group ( CG ), Canada's CDPQ, DigitalBridge

Credit, funds managed by BlackRock ( BLK ), Eldridge Industries

and Great Elm Capital ( GECC ) were also part of CoreWeave's

latest debt raise.

CoreWeave has seen a boost from businesses rapidly adopting

generative AI technology. It has partnerships with AI startups

and competing cloud providers to build clusters to power AI

workloads.

The company has access to the most advanced Nvidia ( NVDA ) chips

that are in short supply, giving it an edge over hyperscalers

such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Azure

and Google Cloud.

Hyperscalers are cloud providers with a large network of

data centers and wide range of services, and are often preferred

for end-to-end workload support.

Amazon ( AMZN ), Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Google-parent Alphabet posted strong

growth for their cloud units in the most recent quarter,

underscoring higher spending by customers.