❯ Anthropic offers Blackstone more than 10% interest on debt to rent chips

Double-digit interestAccording to Startup Fortune, citing an October 16 Financial Times report, Anthropic offered Blackstone a coupon above 10% to have Blackstone funds put in $9 billion. These terms are still being negotiated, and no final agreement has been announced.

The money rents TPUsAnthropic’s IPO filing discloses a five-year, $125.2 billion lease for Google’s in-house AI chips, TPUs. To pay for it, Broadcom arranged a $60 billion debt package; a $42 billion senior loan led by banks covers about a third of the lease. Lenders are betting Anthropic keeps paying its rent.

Blackstone takes the riskier layerBlackstone’s $9 billion sits in the junior part, repaid after the senior loan if things go wrong, so it earns more. The report notes similarly rated borrowers pay about 7% in public bond markets, well below what Anthropic is offering.

Borrowing is getting more expensiveRenting chips with borrowed money lets Anthropic expand compute without selling shares, at the cost of a large annual interest bill that weighs more as revenue growth slows. The same week its quarterly growth slowed to 45%, and some investors cut valuation expectations partly over rising financing costs.

Not signed yetHow much Blackstone puts in and the rates and protections for each layer depend on a formal agreement. Broadcom is both chip seller and loan arranger here, and the report says Anthropic’s filing lists that dual role as a potential conflict of interest.

▮ SIGNALThe bottleneck for compute expansion isn’t only whether chips are available, but who will lend and at what interest rate.