The $200 Billion Financing Behemoth Behind Anthropic: Wall Street Buys Chips, with Google and Broadcom Backstopping

Dynamic Beating AI Newsflash: Behind Anthropic's Google Processing Power Order, a financing and contract system of about $200 billion has been set up. The Financial Times reported that roughly 80% of it is related to TPU chips. Anthropic does not need to put up all the funds upfront; the money to purchase the chips mainly comes from Wall Street, with Google and Broadcom respectively backing the data center and chips.

The first batch of about $35 billion, 1GW of TPUs, was first sold by Google to Broadcom, then transferred to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) established for this transaction. Institutions such as Apollo and Blackstone provided debt financing to the SPV, which purchased around 1 million TPUs and then leased them to Anthropic.

Broadcom provided residual value support for about $30 billion of it. If Anthropic cannot pay the rent in the future, and selling the TPUs is not enough to repay the debt, Broadcom will cover the shortfall for the senior debtholders.

Google guarantees the data center. Google stands behind Anthropic's lease, allowing developers to borrow money to build data centers using Google's credit. The FT stated that Google has supported 10 projects totaling 2.4GW, with a potential exposure of up to around $44 billion.

The entire chain goes like this: Wall Street provides funds to buy the chips, Anthropic pays rent, Broadcom ensures the residual value of the chips, and Google guarantees the data center lease. A multi-billion-dollar processing power order is thus broken down into layers of financing and guarantees.