Broadcom is working to arrange more than $50 billion in financing for the custom AI chip it is developing with OpenAI, with Apollo and Blackstone among the lenders approached. Oracle and SpaceX are pursuing similar multibillion-dollar debt deals for AI chip purchases, as the AI buildout strains what bond markets can absorb.
Broadcom has spent recent weeks arranging more than $50 billion in financing for the custom AI chip it is developing with OpenAI, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the discussions. Apollo and Blackstone are among the lenders Broadcom has approached.
Deal still taking shape
The talks remain at an early stage and the size of the deal could change, though it is expected to close before the end of the year and could cover several gigawatts of OpenAI chip capacity. The financing follows the partnership the two companies announced a year ago to jointly develop 10 gigawatts of OpenAI's custom chips using Broadcom's networking technology, with deployment planned from the second half of 2026 through the end of 2029.
Oracle and SpaceX chase similar deals
Oracle is separately in talks with Apollo and Goldman Sachs to fund a large chip purchase and also hopes to finalize a deal this year, while still talking to several potential partners. The structure would likely see investors fund a separate company that buys the chips, which Oracle would then lease over time, letting it avoid adding more debt of its own as it competes with larger, cash-rich rivals. SpaceX has also spoken to lenders in recent days about a $40 billion financing for Nvidia chips, a deal first reported by the Financial Times.
Why private lenders are stepping in
Cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Oracle have historically paid for hardware from their own cash flows, and for the AI buildout they issued hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds, which pushed public debt markets to their limits. A newer group of buyers, including OpenAI and Anthropic, lacks the balance sheets to buy hardware outright. Having long rented most of their computing capacity from cloud providers, these labs now want to own more of it to cut costs and reduce their reliance on others.
The shift from public bond issuance to bespoke private financing suggests the cost of the AI buildout is outrunning what traditional debt markets can comfortably absorb, putting private credit giants at the center of the next phase of spending. For chipmakers such as Broadcom and Nvidia, lender-backed purchases support demand visibility well beyond what buyers could fund from their own balance sheets.
Source: investingLive
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