Over $35B for Anthropic, Debt Backed by Apollo and Blackstone
Private credit players led by Apollo Global Management and Blackstone have arranged a massive total of $35B in debt financing for AI research company Anthropic. The funds will be used to purchase and lease Google's custom AI chip, the "TPU," making it one of the largest chip-related debt deals in history.
This deal was structured not as an equity investment but as a debt financing package split into three tranches. According to reports, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) borrows the funds to purchase Google's TPUs and then leases them to Anthropic. A notable feature is that the senior portion involves Broadcom, which has collaborated on Google's TPU development, acting as a backstop (guarantor), enhancing the deal's creditworthiness (details). Although an approach of around $36B was initially reported, it ultimately closed at $35B and was reportedly completed in early June 2026 (finalize report).
The backdrop is the AI development competition with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others, the so-called "AI arms race." For Anthropic, which holds the flagship Claude series, securing the computational resources (compute) that support model training and inference has become the most critical issue. The company has so far received a cumulative total of over $8B from Amazon and multiple rounds of investment from Google, utilizing AWS and Google Cloud as its main cloud foundations. Entering 2026, there have been reports of a valuation in the range of $380B to $965B, and movements toward IPO preparation have also been rumored (company information). This debt deal aims to rapidly accelerate data center-scale TPU leasing during this expansion phase.
The main structure and figures of the deal are as follows.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Deal size | $35B (an approach of around $36B was also reported) |
| Use | Purchase of Google TPUs / lease to Anthropic |
| Structure | SPV borrows, purchases chips, and leases |
| Guarantee | Broadcom backstops senior debt |
| Completion timing | Early June 2026 |
There is also mention that Apollo's Atlas SP provided some equity, and the tranche structure is divided into multiple yield layers (analysis of debt structure).
Because this deal is a corporate debt transaction, it differs in nature from the direct usage assessments of general users or developers. In the industry, while positive views stand out, such as "securing large-scale compute can be expected to drive further evolution of Claude" and "this is one of the largest private credit deals in history," there are also voices pointing out "the risk of debt burden" and "concerns over capital concentration in AI infrastructure." It is positioned as a deal symbolizing a new phase in which Wall Street private credit players step directly into chip financing without going through equity.
On the product side for Anthropic, developers have praised its agentic coding capabilities and high scores on SWE-bench Verified, and the Sonnet class has been well received for its strong cost-performance. For Claude Opus-class models, levels such as over 80% on SWE-bench Verified and over 94% on GPQA Diamond have been reported (model information). On the other hand, there are also voices pointing out limitations in context length and cost. Whether the large-scale TPU foundation secured this time will boost the training and inference of these model groups and directly translate into competitiveness will be the focus going forward.
Glossary
- TPU (Tensor Processing Unit): A dedicated chip developed by Google for AI and machine learning. Used as a highly efficient computational resource as an alternative to GPUs.
- Private Credit: Non-public debt financing provided by private funds and others rather than banks. Highly flexible for large-scale deals.
- SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle): A special purpose company established only for a specific transaction. Here it handles the purchase and leasing of chips, serving to isolate risk.
- Backstop: Bearing the obligation to guarantee or underwrite debt. This time, Broadcom guarantees the senior debt.
- Tranche: A layer into which debt is divided by differences in risk or yield. Divided into A1/A2, B, etc., and offered to investors.
- AI arms race: A metaphor referring to the intensification of AI development competition. It represents the scramble over computational resources, model performance, and funding.