Nvidia and Broadcom are no longer just selling the chips behind the AI boom — they're helping arrange the financing that pays for them. Bank of America says the shift could support a $5 trillion wave of AI capital spending through 2030, but it also shifts some of that spending's risk back onto the suppliers.
Both companies already make billions building the hardware that powers artificial intelligence. Now they're increasingly helping their own customers find the money to buy it, and Bank of America describes major chip suppliers as taking on an unexpected role as credit intermediaries.
Nvidia lines up $500 billion for AI infrastructure
Nvidia is partnering with Apollo Global Management, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to raise over $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure, the company said. The financing push is meant to build specialized pools of capital that Nvidia's clients can tap at reasonable rates.
CEO Jensen Huang framed the shift this way: According to TheStreet: "today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories." In August, Nvidia also agreed to guarantee financing for land, electricity and construction at SB Energy's PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio, a project expected to provide 4.25 gigawatts of AI compute capacity for OpenAI, alongside a $1.5 billion Nvidia investment in SB Energy.
Broadcom's guarantees cut borrowing costs
Broadcom shows how supplier backing can reshape the credit terms behind an AI project. Bank of America said Broadcom's AI XPV Platform has secured senior notes and residual chip value covering $31 billion of an initial $35 billion loan package arranged with Apollo and Blackstone — nearly 87% of the debt. The guaranteed portion was priced at 5.75%, against 8.5% for an unsecured second lien, the bank said.
That backing has commercial logic behind it: Broadcom reported $16.7 billion in AI semiconductor sales for its fiscal third quarter, up 221% from a year earlier, and CEO Hock Tan said the company expects AI semiconductor revenue to reach about $21.7 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter.
A $1.2 trillion funding gap
Bank of America studied eight large AI and cloud businesses — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle, SpaceX, CoreWeave and Nebius Group — and forecasts they may generate about $6.6 trillion in operating cash flow against roughly $6.9 trillion in capital spending through 2030. The shortfall is unevenly spread: the four smaller firms in the group face a gap of about $700 billion between capital expenditure and operating cash flow.
As a result, Bank of America estimates the group's overall external capital need could reach as much as $1.2 trillion through 2030, with debt covering most of it.
More financing, more risk for suppliers
More financing can mean more data centers, and more data centers can mean more chip orders. But the guarantees don't remove financial risk — they redistribute it. If a supplier is backing revenue, assets or parts of a financing package, it could be exposed if projects underdeliver or hardware values fall faster than expected. For Nvidia and Broadcom investors, that means watching not just revenue and shipments, but who is funding the buildout and who absorbs the risk if it doesn't pay off as expected.
Source: TheStreet
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