Apollo Global Management Inc and Blackstone Inc are structuring a roughly $36bn private debt package aimed at financing artificial intelligence infrastructure for Anthropic PBC, in one of the largest transactions of its kind in the private credit market, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The financing is designed to enable Anthropic to acquire Google’s proprietary tensor processing units (TPUs), which will then be leased back to the AI developer for use across its expanding compute footprint. The structure centres on a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will raise debt and equity capital to purchase the chips before deploying them under long-term lease agreements.
The report cites unnamed market sources as revealing that the transaction is being structured with significant involvement from Broadcom Inc, which plays a key role in supporting Google’s TPU development. Broadcom is expected to provide a form of residual value guarantee on the underlying hardware, effectively underpinning a large portion of the credit risk associated with the senior notes.
The financing is understood to be divided into multiple tranches, including senior A1 and A2 notes alongside a smaller subordinated B tranche. The A1 and A2 segments are expected to benefit most directly from Broadcom’s credit support, effectively aligning their risk profile closer to investment-grade exposure.
The structure mirrors an emerging trend in AI infrastructure finance, where lenders are increasingly comfortable underwriting hardware-backed cash flows rather than relying solely on corporate balance sheets. In this case, lease payments from Anthropic form the primary repayment source, while residual chip value and third-party support provide additional credit enhancement.
Apollo and Blackstone are also said to be syndicating portions of the debt to other institutional investors while retaining meaningful stakes themselves, a common approach in large-scale private credit transactions. Investor feedback is reportedly being collected this week, with a targeted close expected in the near term, subject to documentation and final allocations.
The deal highlights the intensifying competition among AI developers to secure high-performance compute capacity, particularly as demand for custom silicon accelerates. While Nvidia Corporation remains dominant in the GPU market, Google has been increasingly active through its TPU programme, positioning itself as an alternative provider of large-scale AI compute infrastructure alongside emerging financing models seen in GPU-backed lending transactions such as those involving CoreWeave Inc.
Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI models, has been scaling aggressively and recently surpassed rival OpenAI in valuation following a major funding round that underscored investor appetite for frontier AI platforms. The company is widely viewed as preparing for a potential public listing as capital requirements for AI infrastructure continue to escalate.
The broader structure reflects a growing wave of asset-backed financing in the sector, echoing earlier large-scale data centre funding models such as those linked to Meta Platforms Inc. Market participants note that residual value guarantees and long-term leasing frameworks are increasingly being used to make highly capital-intensive AI infrastructure bankable for institutional credit investors.
Shares in Alphabet Inc and Broadcom Inc reportedly reacted positively to the news in after-hours trading, reflecting investor optimism around demand for custom silicon and the monetisation of AI hardware ecosystems.
