Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX Seek Debt Deals to Finance AI Chips
Major technology and infrastructure participants, including Broadcom, Oracle, and SpaceX, are actively negotiating multibillion-dollar private debt packages to fund specialized computing hardware and data-center expansion. The capital rush highlights financial strain as traditional public bond markets and internal corporate cash flows approach their limits amid global infrastructure demands.
Surging debt borrowing for tech and AI infrastructure contributed to sovereign bond strains as the 10-year US Treasury yield hit a 24-year high of 5.326%.
Broadcom is spearheading the financing wave, working to structure a package exceeding $50 billion to support custom artificial intelligence chip production developed alongside OpenAI. Preliminary discussions have engaged private credit institutions, including Apollo Global Management and Blackstone.
OpenAI's custom inference chip built with Broadcom carries a 700W rating versus 1,200W for Nvidia GB200 and 1,400W for GB300, achieving 1.5 to 1.9 times more work per watt.
Banks began syndicating a $60 billion debt package for Anthropic that included $42 billion of senior debt backed by Broadcom guarantees and $18 billion of junior debt.
Broadcom previously arranged a $35 billion financing partnership with Apollo and Blackstone in June 2026 to expand computing capacity for Anthropic.
Nvidia operates a $500 billion-plus infrastructure financing program partnered with Apollo, Blackstone, and other private credit institutions.
Off-Balance-Sheet Frameworks and Custom Silicon
Broadcom's custom silicon initiative, designated internally as Nexus, targets the deployment of multiple gigawatts of data-center capacity through 2029. The program provides tech enterprises with infrastructure alternatives to standard hardware accelerators supplied by Nvidia.
Concurrently, Oracle is negotiating with Apollo Global Management and Goldman Sachs to establish a dedicated financing mechanism for a 1-gigawatt data center facility. Under the proposed structure, private investors would capitalize an off-balance-sheet entity to purchase computing chips and lease them back to Oracle. This arrangement enables the cloud provider to scale capacity without overleveraging its balance sheet against larger hyperscale competitors.
Off-balance sheet data center financing utilizes special purpose entities capitalised by sponsors that raise debt through private placements, supported by hyperscaler minority stakes and long-term operating leases.
Private Credit as a Financial Backstop
The migration toward alternative capital extends beyond traditional cloud providers. SpaceX has initiated discussions with lenders regarding a $40 billion debt structure dedicated to acquiring Nvidia processors. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic increasingly seek direct infrastructure ownership to mitigate long-term cloud rental expenditures.
With primary transaction targets slated for completion by year-end, Wall Street's private credit ecosystem is positioned as a primary financial backstop for the ongoing artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out.
How chip-backed borrowing changes the risk
Debt raised around chips and data centres is ultimately a bet on future demand for computing capacity. Under a lease or special-purpose structure, the operator may get hardware without paying its entire price upfront, while lenders depend on lease receipts and the value of rapidly evolving equipment. The headline size of a proposed deal is not the same as debt that has been issued or drawn. Before comparing transactions, readers should distinguish financing discussions, signed commitments and completed funding. The critical questions are who guarantees repayment, who bears obsolescence losses and whether long-term customer contracts cover the financing costs.