Blackstone Eyes $36 Billion Debt Deal to Fuel Anthropic's Google Chip Access

Blackstone Group has initiated preliminary discussions with investors to gauge market interest in a second large-scale debt financing, aimed at supporting AI startup Anthropic's funding needs for leasing custom chips from Google (GOOGL-US).

According to Bloomberg, citing sources, one preliminary proposal could involve debt of at least $36 billion. However, details such as the final size, structure, and whether Blackstone will ultimately lead the financing are still under discussion and subject to change.

If the deal reaches close to $36 billion, it would surpass the $35 billion debt financing arranged about two months ago by Apollo Global Management and Blackstone to support Anthropic’s leasing of Google’s custom chips—an already historic transaction in the private credit market.

Representatives from Blackstone, Apollo, Anthropic, and Google declined to comment.

As Silicon Valley races to build AI infrastructure, leading companies are forming complex, often interlinked deals to secure access to computing power.

Google is one of Anthropic’s earliest investors, having purchased equity stakes multiple times, and has increasingly become a key financial backstop supporting the startup’s data center operations.

This potential new round of financing comes as Anthropic is secretly filing for an initial public offering (IPO) with U.S. regulators, aiming to go public ahead of rival OpenAI.

Under prior debt arrangements, the developer of Claude plans to lease high-performance computing chips across five data centers with Google’s support.

Faced with unprecedented capital demands from AI, tech firms are tapping various segments of the credit markets, forcing Wall Street to design innovative debt structures. Recently, amid concerns that AI investment returns may fall short of expectations, some companies have been forced to issue new debt at higher yields.

This year, Broadcom (AVGO-US), Apollo, and Blackstone launched a collaboration called the 'AI XPV Platform' to help leading AI companies like Anthropic finance the buildout of computing infrastructure. The $35 billion debt deal completed about two months ago was the platform’s first financing.

In that transaction, Broadcom provided payment guarantees for the largest portion of senior debt. Bloomberg reported that Morgan Stanley (MS-US) served as advisor and helped structure the financing.