Broadcom in Talks for Up to $100 Billion in Off-Balance-Sheet Debt to Fund Anthropic Chip Deals

Broadcom is in talks with a group of lenders to raise more than $60 billion, and potentially up to $100 billion, in debt to finance AI chip purchases for Anthropic and other customers, according to Bloomberg News, which cited people familiar with the matter. Reuters, TradingView, StockTwits and The Next Web all confirmed the reporting Thursday.

The structure matters more than the headline number. According to Bloomberg's sourcing, the package would include a senior-secured tranche of roughly $60 billion to $70 billion and a junior tranche of about $30 billion. A special-purpose vehicle, a separate legal entity, would issue the debt. Broadcom would guarantee part of the senior tranche but the debt itself sits off Broadcom's own balance sheet.

This isn't new. Broadcom, Blackstone and Apollo Global Management set up this exact arrangement in June under what the companies call the AI XPV partnership, raising $35 billion to buy custom Broadcom chips that get leased to Anthropic rather than sold outright. The Next Web reported that Broadcom's guarantee on that earlier deal helped the senior tranches earn investment-grade ratings, which lowered borrowing costs for everyone involved.

Blackstone and Apollo are reportedly back at the table for this larger round. Blackstone declined to comment when Reuters asked. Broadcom and Apollo did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. Anthropic also declined to comment to The Next Web.

Why the size jump matters

The AI XPV partnership's stated goal is financing more than 20 gigawatts of AI computing capacity for leading labs by 2028, a build-out Bloomberg estimates will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The Next Web did the math: the first $35 billion commitment bought one gigawatt. On that ratio, the partnership has funded roughly a twentieth of its own target after one round. A $100 billion round would close a lot more of that gap, but it also means Broadcom is layering a second, much larger debt vehicle on top of the first inside of three months.

Broadcom's finances give some context for why lenders are comfortable talking numbers this size. TradingView reported the company held $19.63 billion in cash as of May 3, 2026, against $62.66 billion in long-term debt already on its books. Broadcom's CEO said in March the company expects AI chip sales to top $100 billion next year. The company also holds an Apple deal expected to exceed $30 billion running through 2031 and a $200 billion Samsung agreement signed in July covering memory, foundry and packaging through 2030.

Wall Street's initial reaction was calm. Broadcom shares rose as much as 1.1% in after-hours trading following the Bloomberg report, according to The Next Web, after briefly dipping. StockTwits put Thursday's regular-session gain at 0.4%. TradingView noted the stock was indicated up almost 1% in Friday's premarket session, with Nasdaq futures up 0.34%.

The credit market isn't as calm

ZeroHedge frames this deal inside a much bigger worry it has tracked for a year: that off-balance-sheet debt funding the AI buildout is a systemic risk hiding in plain sight, not visible on any single company's books because it sits in special-purpose vehicles. ZeroHedge points to credit-default-swap volumes on hyperscalers hitting all-time highs and cites Nomura's Charlie McElligott describing rising alarm in credit markets tied to circular financing arrangements across the AI sector, where the same handful of companies fund each other's purchases and guarantees.

NPR's reporting, while not about Broadcom specifically, describes the mechanism that makes this backdrop dangerous. A bond sell-off driven by concerns over U.S. government debt levels and inflation is already pushing yields higher across the market. NPR notes total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion. When corporate borrowers, including AI infrastructure vehicles, compete with the Treasury for buyers in that environment, it can push borrowing costs up for both.

None of the sources here allege Broadcom or its partners are doing anything improper. The financing arrangement, using investment-grade guarantees to lower the cost of debt for AI infrastructure buildouts, is a legal and increasingly common structure among hyperscalers and their chip suppliers, as Reuters, TradingView and The Next Web all note without objection to its legality. The open question raised by ZeroHedge and echoed in the broader credit-market commentary isn't whether it's allowed. It's whether the volume of it, now stacking into the hundreds of billions across multiple companies, creates concentrated risk that doesn't show up on any single balance sheet until something breaks.

Talks are ongoing and terms could change, Bloomberg's sources told the outlet, and the financing could roll out in stages rather than all at once. Whether the deal lands at $60 billion or scales to the full $100 billion, and whether it arrives in one tranche or stages, remains unresolved.