Apollo, Blackstone Shop $36B of AI Chip Financing For Anthropic
1h ago|4 min readStandard
Fazen Markets Editorial Desk
Collective editorial team · methodology
artificial-intelligenceprivate-equity
Fazen Markets Editorial Desk
Collective editorial team · methodology
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Investment giants Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are marketing approximately $36 billion of debt financing to fund purchases of Google Cloud server chips for AI developer Anthropic, according to reporting published on 28 May 2026. The financing, structured as asset-backed debt, would fund Anthropic’s multi-year commitment to buy Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). The scale of the potential transaction underscores the immense capital requirements for leading artificial intelligence models and the growing role of private capital markets in funding this build-out. Parent company Alphabet’s stock, GOOGL, traded at $390.13, up 0.32% on the day, as of 21:26 UTC today.
This $36 billion financing effort is among the largest single-purpose debt packages in technology history. It echoes the wave of specialized lending that fueled the shale boom in the 2010s, where hundreds of billions in reserve-based lending was secured against oil and gas assets. The current macroeconomic backdrop, with the Federal Reserve’s target rate above 5%, makes such large-scale, structured debt a critical alternative to dilutive equity raises or purely balance sheet-funded expansion for cash-intensive AI firms.
The catalyst is the surge in computational demand for training frontier AI models like Anthropic’s Claude. Training costs for next-generation models have escalated into the billions of dollars, with infrastructure commitments stretching five to ten years. This has shifted the strategic bottleneck from pure research talent to securing guaranteed, long-term access to advanced semiconductors. To lock in this access, AI companies like Anthropic are entering massive multi-year purchase agreements with cloud providers like Google Cloud, which in turn require novel financing solutions.
These financing structures transform a long-term operational expense into a securitized asset. For Google, it ensures a committed revenue stream and deepens its strategic partnership with a leading AI lab. For lenders like Apollo and Blackstone, it offers an opportunity to gain exposure to AI growth through senior secured debt, backed by hard, revenue-generating assets, which is perceived as less risky than direct equity investments in volatile tech startups.
The reported $36 billion in potential financing highlights the staggering scale of modern AI infrastructure. To contextualize, $36 billion surpasses the entire 2025 venture capital investment into AI and machine learning startups globally, which totaled approximately $32 billion. It also exceeds the market capitalization of several major corporations, such as Ford Motor Company, which stands near $50 billion. Alphabet’s stock, GOOGL, was trading at $390.13, within a daily range of $385.16 to $391.86, reflecting a steady market as this news circulated.
A key comparison is the broader sector performance. The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index (NDX) has gained approximately 18% year-to-date, driven largely by AI optimism. Google’s cloud division, which houses its TPU business, reported revenue growth of 25% year-over-year in its last quarterly earnings, outpacing the company’s overall growth rate. The sheer size of this single financing package, equivalent to roughly 1.5% of Alphabet’s $2.4 trillion market capitalization, demonstrates that AI infrastructure spending is entering a new order of magnitude.
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Reported Financing | ~$36 billion | For Google TPU purchases by Anthropic |
| GOOGL Share Price | $390.13 | As of 28 May 2026, 21:26 UTC |
| GOOGL Daily Gain | +0.32% | Outperforming the S&P 500’s flat session |
This structured debt deal represents a significant pivot in corporate finance for the AI era. Traditional corporate bonds for a pre-profitability company of Anthropic’s stage would carry prohibitive yields. Securitizing the future stream of compute capacity, however, creates a bankable asset that can attract institutional capital at more favorable rates, effectively bridging the gap between AI’s immense capital needs and venture capital’s capacity.
The immediate beneficiaries are clear: Alphabet (GOOGL) secures a massive, long-term commitment for its cloud hardware, directly boosting its Google Cloud revenue visibility and strengthening its position in the AI infrastructure arms race. Semiconductor capital equipment firms like Applied Materials (AMAT) and ASML Holding (ASML) stand to gain from the sustained demand for advanced chip manufacturing that such deals imply, as cloud providers race to build out capacity.
Specialized lenders and private credit funds, including Apollo (APO) and Blackstone (BX), gain a new, high-volume asset class. This could pressure yields in traditional leveraged finance as capital flocks to these structured AI deals. Conversely, pure-play AI software companies without similar secured financing may face higher capital costs, potentially widening the gap between well-funded leaders and challengers. A key risk is the asset’s residual value; the debt is secured against specialized servers that could become obsolete faster than anticipated if AI architecture shifts, leaving lenders with collateral that depreciates rapidly.
Market positioning shows institutional flow moving towards the “picks and shovels” of AI—the infrastructure providers and financiers—rather than exclusively the application-layer startups. The success of this financing could open the floodgates for similar deals for other AI labs, creating a new sub-sector in fixed income and drawing more traditional credit investors into the technology ecosystem.
The primary catalyst is the successful pricing and closing of the $36 billion debt package, expected in Q3 2026. Market reception will set a benchmark for future AI infrastructure securitizations. Investors should monitor Google Cloud’s next earnings report on 24 July 2026 for any commentary on capital commitments and AI infrastructure revenue growth, which could move GOOGL stock.
Key levels to watch for GOOGL include the psychological resistance at $395, a level it has tested but not sustained in recent months. A sustained break above this on high volume could signal renewed bullish conviction tied to cloud monetization. On the macro side, the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on 16 September will influence the cost of capital for all such large-scale financing. Any indication of rate cuts could accelerate similar debt issuance, while a hawkish hold could pressure the economics of these deals.
Asset-backed financing for AI chips involves a company, like Anthropic, using its future purchase commitments for specialized semiconductors as collateral to secure a loan. Lenders provide capital upfront, which is used to pay the chip supplier (e.g., Google). The loan is then repaid over time, secured by the physical servers and the revenue they generate. This structure allows AI firms to access large sums without immediate equity dilution.
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