Google in Talks to Guarantee $15 Billion Loan for Anthropic Data Center in Texas

Google is in advanced talks to backstop a $15 billion financing deal for an Anthropic data center campus in Hubbard, Texas, according to the Wall Street Journal, a report confirmed by CNBC on Thursday, July 30.

The project developer is Nexus Data Centers, a relatively new player in the space. Morgan Stanley is leading the bank group negotiating the deal, according to CNBC and Reuters. Neither Nexus nor the banks have announced a completed transaction, according to reporting from crypto.news.

What's in the package

The financing reportedly includes a $14 billion bridge loan plus a revolving credit facility, according to the Journal's reporting as relayed by Reuters. The size of that revolving facility, and the identities of the other banks involved beyond Morgan Stanley, have not been disclosed.

Google's role is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. The company has agreed to guarantee billions of dollars of Anthropic's lease and power-payment obligations if Anthropic defaults, according to the Journal. That guarantee covers four data-center leases Anthropic signed plus the power-purchase agreements tied to an on-site natural-gas plant, Reuters reported.

Google's backing is reportedly capped at "the minimum level required by lenders to complete the financing," per the Journal's sourcing. Google isn't handing over a blank check. It's putting up just enough of its investment-grade credit rating to get the deal done. In exchange, Google is expected to receive an equity stake of around 20% in the combined data-center and power project, according to the Journal and TradingView.

The power problem

The Hubbard, Texas campus is designed to include its own natural-gas-fired power plant capable of generating 1.6 gigawatts of electricity, according to CNBC, Reuters, and TradingView. Access to reliable electricity has become one of the biggest bottlenecks for new AI data centers, since new transmission lines and grid connections can take years to permit and build, as crypto.news noted. Building a dedicated power plant on-site lets Nexus sidestep some of that wait.

Anthropic plans to run tensor processing units at the site, chips co-designed by Google and Broadcom, according to all four sources. Those chips would be financed separately, through a vendor-financing arrangement between Anthropic and Broadcom, the Journal reported.

Part of a bigger pattern

This isn't Anthropic's only infrastructure deal this year. The company struck an agreement with Advanced Micro Devices earlier in July, one with Elon Musk's SpaceX in May, and deals with Google and Broadcom in April, according to CNBC. Google separately agreed in April to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, building on a relationship that started with a $300 million investment in 2023 for roughly a 10% stake, followed by another $2 billion months later, CNBC reported.

The structure here, a financially strong tech giant guaranteeing debt for a smaller AI infrastructure developer, is becoming the template across the industry. TradingView's reporting notes that Anthropic's chief rival, OpenAI, has pursued something similar, holding talks with Nvidia over a $250 billion backstop for a planned Ohio campus that could eventually draw 10 gigawatts of power.

Separately, bitcoin mining companies have been pivoting into this same market. TeraWulf signed a 20-year lease with Anthropic on July 6 for a Kentucky data campus, a deal covering about 401 megawatts of capacity that's expected to generate roughly $19 billion in revenue over its term, according to crypto.news.

What's actually confirmed, and what isn't

None of the four outlets reviewed here confirm a signed, final agreement. This is characterized consistently as "advanced talks," sourced to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Journal. Google, Anthropic, Nexus, and Morgan Stanley all either declined to comment or did not respond when contacted by CNBC and Reuters.

TradingView reported the deal "could be announced as soon as Thursday" and noted Alphabet shares were down about 0.7% Thursday afternoon. Investors are watching whether Google is taking on billions in guarantee exposure for a partner it doesn't fully own. Google is stacking financial exposure to Anthropic through equity, credit guarantees, and chip supply all at once, a concentration of risk that didn't exist a year ago.

The open question is what happens if AI demand cools before these facilities are built out. Google's guarantee is capped at "the minimum" lenders demanded, according to the Journal's reporting, which suggests lenders themselves aren't fully comfortable taking Anthropic's credit on its own. Whether that structure holds up if the AI infrastructure boom slows is not something any of these sources answer.