Anthropic, the developer of Claude, is negotiating a chip financing package of roughly $60 billion to lock in about 1.5 gigawatts of Google custom TPU capacity, according to the Financial Times. Blackstone-managed funds are in talks to subscribe about $9 billion of subordinated debt with an all-in return exceeding 10%. The deal is not yet final, but the pricing marks a sharp rise from the roughly 8.5% rate on similar financing just four months ago.
Compute Financing Costs Are Climbing Fast
The jump from 8.5% to more than 10% in four months signals that the era of cheap, abundant capital for frontier AI infrastructure is closing. Even tier-one labs are now paying rates approaching high-yield territory to keep GPUs and custom accelerators flowing. Analysts describe the shift as a structural change: the battleground is moving from "who can raise the most equity at the highest valuation" to "who can finance compute at the lowest cost."
Private Credit Steps In Where Venture Equity Retreats
With venture equity discipline returning and public markets selective, private credit funds such as Blackstone are becoming the de facto financiers of AI capex. The structure shifts risk from equity holders to credit holders and creates a new class of AI-linked debt exposure. Anthropic's move follows a broader pattern of AI labs securitizing future revenue to fund data-center buildouts, and comes as the company pursues a potential record-setting IPO with reported Q3 revenue of $16.8 billion.
Competitive Stakes in the Compute Race
If Anthropic pays double-digit yields while better-capitalized, hyperscaler-backed competitors fund compute at internal hurdle rates of 6-8%, the spread could compound into a structural disadvantage over a multi-year horizon. The deal will test whether private credit can sustainably bridge the gap between AI revenue growth and the enormous upfront cost of compute, and whether this becomes a one-off bridge or the start of a broader AI credit cycle.
Sources: Financial Times, Wall Street CN, Smartotics, threerouter
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