Anthropic is offering more than 10% to finance $60bn of Google chips

Anthropic is assembling what the Financial Times describes as the largest chip financing yet: a $60bn debt package for about 1.5GW of Google-designed tensor processing units. Blackstone funds have agreed to anchor $9bn of the $18bn junior tranche, backed by Anthropic’s five-year chip-lease payments. The offered coupon is 10%, with discounts and fees pushing the total return higher.

That price is the signal. A borrower with a comparable credit profile would yield about 7% in the public high-yield market. Anthropic’s Project Big Sky raised $4.4bn at 8.5% only four months ago. The new deal is vastly larger and materially more expensive, even though Anthropic was rated just one notch below investment grade by KBRA in June.

The remaining $42bn is senior debt guaranteed by Broadcom, which helps Google develop the TPUs. That guarantee changes where losses sit; it does not make the transaction economically small. Lenders are financing hardware against five years of lease payments in a market where model demand, chip efficiency and competitive pricing can move much faster than ordinary infrastructure.

Anthropic’s strong operating performance helps explain why investors will consider the risk. The company recently reported $16.8bn of quarterly revenue and is preparing for an IPO. Management reportedly expects an investment-grade rating after listing, which would lower future borrowing costs. Blackstone’s unusually high return partly compensates it for providing capital before that transition.

The financing is therefore both a vote of confidence and a warning. Anthropic can still obtain extraordinary sums, but must pay a premium to secure them. If even a leading lab needs double-digit junior capital for chips, the marginal AI project will face harsher terms—or fail to finance at all. The constraint is no longer merely whether demand exists. It is whether future revenue can outrun today’s interest bill before the financed hardware loses economic value.