Anthropic Offers Blackstone a Yield Above 10% in Record $60 Billion Chip Financing, FT Reports
Anthropic is offering Blackstone a 10% coupon, with total returns above that after fees, for $9 billion of junior debt in "Project North Star," a reported $60 billion package to fund about 1.5 gigawatts of Google TPUs, according to the Financial Times.
By 1EyeAI Desk ·
The Financial Times reported on Oct. 16, citing people familiar with the matter, that Anthropic is offering Blackstone a double-digit return on debt tied to its latest chip deal. As reported, Blackstone-managed funds are expected to put $9 billion into junior debt backed by five years of Anthropic's chip lease payments, half of a planned $18 billion junior tranche. Blackstone has reportedly been offered a 10% coupon, with total returns higher once issuance discounts and fees are counted. Similarly rated borrowers typically pay around 7% in public bond markets, according to Investing.com’s summary of the FT story.
The package, dubbed Project North Star, would fund Anthropic's lease of roughly 1.5 gigawatts of Google's custom tensor processing units (TPUs). The other roughly $42 billion is senior debt supported by Broadcom, which co-develops the chips with Google. The FT reported on Oct. 5 that Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley had begun syndicating that senior portion, with proceeds going to 2027 chip orders and lease payments starting only after delivery. Bloomberg had earlier reported on the bank syndicate assembling the financing.
The FT also reported that Anthropic paid 8.5% on a roughly $4.4 billion financing, Project Big Sky, about four months ago, and that the credit rater KBRA rated the company one notch below investment grade in June. Blackstone declined to comment and Anthropic did not immediately respond, per the reports. None of these terms have been officially announced, so treat all figures as reported.
What this means for you: Nothing changes for Claude users today. If you track AI economics, this is a sign that compute is getting more expensive to finance, which can eventually show up in model prices and in how fast labs can scale.
Sources
- Financial Times: Anthropic offers Blackstone double-digit yield in latest chip financing
- Investing.com: summary of FT report on the Blackstone yield (Oct 16)
- Investing.com: summary of FT report on the $60B syndication (Oct 5)
- Bloomberg (via Bloomberg Law): Broadcom amassing $60 billion to fund chips for Anthropic