Anthropic Seeks $60 Billion Debt Deal for 1.5 GW of Google TPUs

Project North Star

Anthropic is assembling a $60 billion debt financing, codenamed Project North Star, to fund the purchase of roughly 1.5 gigawatts of Google's custom TPU chips, according to the Financial Times. If completed, it would be the largest chip-linked debt raise on record. TPU stands for tensor processing unit, the custom semiconductor Google designed for AI workloads, and the 1.5 GW figure describes the power draw of the chip fleet Anthropic would acquire. The reported structure has two layers: about $42 billion of senior debt, backed by a guarantee from Broadcom, which took part in developing the chips, and $18 billion of subordinated loans. Blackstone funds have agreed to subscribe $9 billion of the subordinated tranche, half of it, at a coupon just above 10% a year, and issuance discounts plus fees could push the effective return higher still. The remaining subordinated paper is expected to go to a broader set of investors over the coming months, possibly at terms below the ones Blackstone secured. Once the money is fully drawn in 2027, the debt is slated to move into the institutional 144A bond market, where it gains a secondary trading venue. The debt would sit alongside equity and cash, an example of how AI companies now turn to large-scale borrowing for chips rather than paying from current revenue. People familiar with the matter described the terms to the newspaper, and Reuters passed the plan along while saying it could not independently verify the figures. The Financial Times framed the plan as a financing being pursued rather than one that has closed, and no completion date for the raise was disclosed. Even the outline sets a mark: four months ago Anthropic raised roughly $4.4 billion under the codename Project Big Sky at an 8.5% rate, and the new package is more than ten times larger on the headline number alone.

Pre-IPO Shares Slip 0.57%

A coupon above 10% is what compute costs before an IPO, and COINOTAG's reading of the pre-IPO market shows investors are not rewarding the leverage yet. Anthropic's pre-IPO shares (ANTHROPIC) last changed hands at $1,859.58, down 0.57% over 24 hours, with the daily trend still pointing lower and a 14-day RSI of 33.9. COINOTAG's composite scoring, which blends moving averages, Bollinger Bands and volume structure, puts the strongest support at $1,834.40, scored 93/100, against resistance at $1,899.72, scored 89/100. Perpetual open interest of $42.7 million and a funding rate of 0.0025% point to a mild long bias that a completed raise would test.

A 300 Basis Point Premium

The pricing is where the deal gets expensive. Borrowers with a credit profile similar to Anthropic's typically pay about 7% in the public bond market, measured by the ICE BofA BB-rated US high yield index, so the 10% coupon quoted to Blackstone sits more than 300 basis points above that benchmark. The gap widens once the new-issue discount and fees are counted, which means the true cost of the subordinated money is higher than the headline rate. Two pressures explain the premium, according to the Financial Times. Investors are asking for more compensation as technology companies crowd the debt market with huge, back-to-back financing requests, and deals of this size must pay anchor investors and early committers extra to make sure the transaction closes. The same borrower paid 8.5% only four months ago, a jump that shows how fast the price of AI credit is rising. The climb in borrowing costs also complicates Anthropic's path to an investment-grade rating: rating agency KBRA placed the company one notch below investment grade in June, and the new subordinated debt is expected to carry a similar grade. Blackstone, for its part, has told investment partners that the deal is a rare chance to buy Anthropic-linked debt at high yield levels. The fund manager's bet is that once Anthropic completes a public listing, the company will win an investment-grade rating and be able to refinance at a far lower cost, turning today's 10% paper into tomorrow's gain. That logic only works if markets stay open to AI credit and the listing arrives on schedule. Until then, Anthropic is paying the private market's price for capacity it cannot wait to own: a 10% coupon, a $60 billion total, and a chip fleet measured in gigawatts rather than dollars.