Anthropic’s plans to build a vast artificial intelligence infrastructure are being backed by an increasingly complex web of borrowing, supplier guarantees and hardware-linked investments, with the company’s latest IPO prospectus revealing commitments of $895.4 billion through to 2045.
The disclosure came as the company added third-quarter results to its filing. Those figures showed pressure on margins as computing costs climbed, while Anthropic also set out further data-centre spending obligations.
The arrangements allow the company to secure computing capacity without paying the full cost of equipment immediately. But they also transfer some of the risk to the chipmakers, cloud providers and financial institutions helping to fund its expansion.
Broadcom has agreed to absorb losses under a $63 billion equipment-financing arrangement if Anthropic defaults. Once the equipment is deployed, the chipmaker’s maximum potential liability could reach about $43 billion.
Anthropic’s supplier-backed financing
Under the deal announced on October 26, Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Blackstone will finance a newly created company that buys Broadcom chips and networking equipment before leasing them to Anthropic. Deliveries are expected to start in 2027, with Anthropic paying rent over time.
If Anthropic fails to meet its lease payments, Broadcom will cover the difference between 72.5% of the outstanding amount and the equipment’s resale value. If $100 remained owing and the equipment sold for $60, Broadcom would pay $12.50.
Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said Broadcom was effectively being pushed into such support to compete with Nvidia, which has also offered backing to some of its largest chip customers.
“In order to stay competitive with Nvidia’s support of its customers, other large semis companies like Broadcom and AMD have had to step in to support their customers as well,” he said.
The value of the equipment after a default will depend partly on whether another customer can use it. Andrew Giudici, of credit-rating agency KBRA, said Broadcom’s custom Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, faced greater re-leasing risk than Nvidia graphics processing units because they were designed for a narrower ecosystem.
“Custom TPUs generally have greater re-leasing risk than Nvidia GPUs because they are designed for a more specialized ecosystem and have a narrower pool of potential users,” Giudici said.
He said residual-value guarantees could help lenders recover their money, but would shift part of the risk to the company providing the guarantee. The supplier’s financial strength, the enforceability of its commitment and the level of cover would therefore be central to the financing’s security.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate and finance at Columbia Business School, said suppliers with substantial businesses beyond AI might be able to absorb losses. However, weaker demand could reduce their chip sales, cloud income and investment values at the same time as guarantees were called upon.
“Separate contracts can transmit the same underlying demand shock across multiple balance sheets,” he said. “Individual loans can become safer while the broader system becomes more concentrated but also harder to assess.”
Anthropic’s filing warns that its ability to expand computing capacity may depend on a small group of cloud providers, commercial partners and financiers remaining willing and able to support it. Amazon and Google, two of the company’s most important backers, are also spending heavily on their own AI infrastructure.
Amazon recorded negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the preceding 12 months, largely because of increased investment in AI equipment. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion in the third quarter, although both businesses continue to generate substantial cash and retain access to borrowing.
Rising commitments and pressure on cash
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has previously described the danger of buying computing capacity in anticipation of rapid growth. In a February interview, he said a company could expand at an exceptional rate and still find that its purchases had outpaced its ability to pay for them.
“If you’re off by a couple years, that can be ruinous,” Amodei said.
A March 2026 agreement allows Anthropic to issue up to $42 billion in convertible notes to Broadcom to cover eligible quarterly rent. The mechanism preserves cash in the short term, but adds interest to the debt and gives the holder the option of converting it into Anthropic shares at a discount.
The notes normally carry interest of 9%, which is added to the balance, and can be converted at 90% of the market price. If specified revenue conditions are not met, the rate rises to 13% and conversion takes place at 85% of the market price, increasing potential dilution for existing shareholders.
Anthropic said the relevant revenue thresholds were significantly below its recent growth rates. It reported quarterly revenue growth of 45% in its third-quarter results and year-on-year growth of more than 1,000%. Continued failure to meet the conditions could end access to further funding.
Google and AMD have also tied parts of their support to hardware commitments. Some Google funding becomes available as Anthropic takes on TPU leases, while AMD’s investment is released as its graphics processors reach delivery and deployment milestones.
Van Nieuwerburgh said such arrangements exposed the suppliers without making them blanket guarantors. If Anthropic could not pay, Broadcom and Google would face losses within the limits of their guarantees, while lenders would retain the remaining risk.
Although Anthropic says Claude can operate across chips supplied by Amazon, Google, Nvidia and AMD, financing linked to one supplier’s hardware cannot automatically be transferred to another. That could restrict the company’s ability to choose equipment solely on the basis of price and performance.
Anthropic reported $146.6 billion in liquidity at September 30, including cash, short-term investments and available bank credit. Drawing on that credit would provide additional funds but would also increase its borrowing.
Robert Trzcinka, assessing the company’s debt prospects, said the question of whether Anthropic could secure an investment-grade rating would depend on how agencies viewed its limited operating history, extensive future commitments and closely connected commercial relationships.
He said the disclosed commitments were larger than previously estimated, rising to about $895 billion from an earlier estimate of roughly $600 billion. The scale of those obligations could make it harder for Anthropic to borrow at the lower interest premiums generally available to investment-grade companies.
“The key question is whether revenue can compound fast enough to absorb the future commitments and outpace compute cost,” Trzcinka said. He added that further commitments and any deterioration in liquidity would be closely watched, with drawings on the revolving credit facility a possible warning sign.
IPO could give Anthropic more choice
Through its Anthropic Direct programme, the company plans to develop its own cloud infrastructure while separating commitments to data-centre space from the later purchase of the chips installed inside it.
That approach allows Anthropic to reserve dedicated facilities operated by third parties before committing to the equipment. The company says data centres take longer to prepare than the hardware they contain, allowing it to assess demand before making the full investment and eventually replace more expensive short-term computing capacity with longer-term provision.
However, reserving space and power still carries a risk if demand fails to materialise. Van Nieuwerburgh said a facility with secured power could become a stranded asset if demand for data centres disappointed, leaving Anthropic with costs that could not easily be recovered through a sale.
Anthropic says independent financing raised through an initial public offering could reduce its reliance on suppliers to fund future facilities and equipment. Shareholder cash would allow it to make purchases without waiting for a particular manufacturer’s delivery or deployment milestones.
An IPO could therefore give the company greater freedom over both its hardware and its financing. But supplier support can fund construction; the eventual cost must still be met by revenue from Anthropic’s customers.
