Broadcom is offering Anthropic up to $42 billion in financing to lease networking and processing chips, tying infrastructure capex to supplier credit.
Anthropic's IPO prospectus reveals an unusually complex relationship with chip maker Broadcom that spans compute supply, equipment leasing and financing — positioning the semiconductor company as central to the AI lab's infrastructure buildout. This differentiates Broadcom from other major partners and investors like Amazon, which primarily provide cloud infrastructure and distribution for Anthropic's model Claude.
As part of this relationship, Broadcom has agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42bn to finance infrastructure spending. Anthropic stands to become Broadcom's largest customer in its bread-and-butter chip design business next year, exemplifying the reciprocal spending arrangements that have drawn skepticism from Wall Street observers even as the AI lab prepares for a public offering that could value it at $2tn.
"It feels that there's quite a concentrated bet right now on two companies being able to generate enough revenues to support all the financing that's happened," said Robert Leitao, managing partner of Rothschild & Co.
Under the financing structure, Broadcom could designate a financing partner, and the debt instruments could be converted into Anthropic shares. Anthropic stated it does not expect any notes to be sold before completing its IPO. The convertible note could finance approximately one third of the $125.2bn commitment the AI lab has made for a five-year lease of tensor processing unit computing capacity.
Alphabet's Google and Broadcom have collaborated on multiple generations of TPUs. Anthropic announced in April an expanded partnership with Broadcom and Google that will grant access to multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity beginning in 2027.
For Broadcom, the arrangement mirrors Nvidia's strategy of leveraging its strong financial position to boost chip sales. "Nvidia is putting in place a massive amount of its balance sheet, and Broadcom is having to follow suit," said Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg.
Anthropic disclosed that Broadcom's dual role in supplying hardware and providing financing creates "potential conflicts of interest" that could affect the company's ability to access necessary computing power. The AI lab also warned that Broadcom's pricing and hardware decisions could impact its ability to procure sufficient computing infrastructure.
According to the filing, Anthropic deposited cash into a restricted account for Broadcom's benefit in April 2026 and may be required to contribute additional amounts under certain circumstances. The company cautioned that payment or performance defaults could accelerate a substantial portion of its lease obligations while limiting access to the $42bn financing facility to cover those payments.
Anthropic is projected to become Broadcom's largest compute customer in 2027. Broadcom forecasts AI semiconductor revenue of approximately $115bn in fiscal 2027 and $230bn in fiscal 2028.