Anthropic’s $63 Billion Financing Coincides With SpaceX’s Roughly $40 Billion Leasing Commitment
Key Facts
Bank of America, Blackstone, Citi and Morgan Stanley announced on October 26 an arrangement worth $63 billion to expand Anthropic’s AI computing capacity using Broadcom technology, according to a Blackstone statement. In a separate deal, SpaceX signed a binding commitment letter two days earlier to enter into a master finance lease, with total expected principal payments of about $40 billion over the lease schedules, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The deals reflect an expansion of AI infrastructure financing through equipment leasing, but finance the needs of two different companies under separate arrangements. Anthropic’s financing covers Broadcom XPU accelerators and networking equipment, while SpaceX’s deal targets GPU units and related equipment for data centers selected by the company. SpaceX’s roughly $40 billion figure is based on expected principal payments and excludes total interest and costs, according to the filing.
Under the Anthropic arrangement, a special purpose vehicle will purchase Broadcom XPU accelerators and networking solutions, then lease the equipment to the company, according to Blackstone’s statement. Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley are arranging the first-lien tranche, while Blackstone alone is providing the committed portion of the second-lien tranche. Blackstone said Broadcom will provide the entity with residual value support equal to the value of the first debt tranche. The allocation puts the banks in the lead on the first financing tranche, while Blackstone provides the committed portion of the second, with residual value support assigned to Broadcom. Equipment deliveries are expected to begin in 2027 under the strategic computing capacity agreement Broadcom previously announced.
SpaceX, meanwhile, signed a binding commitment letter on October 24 to enter into a finance lease with an entity managed by Apollo, according to its filing with the SEC. The entity will purchase GPU units and related equipment to lease to SpaceX for use in data centers selected by the company. SpaceX said the lease will provide NVIDIA Vera Rubin chips for terrestrial computing expenditure. Apollo said the financing is led by Apollo and Goldman Sachs, which acted as sole structuring agents. It added that funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, along with capital accounts advised by KKR, provided major commitments.
SpaceX said each equipment delivery will be subject to a separate lease schedule lasting about five to five and a quarter years from the schedule’s commencement date, with rent payable quarterly in advance. Each payment typically includes a portion of the financing cost and fixed-rate interest set before the final contract is signed, along with ongoing costs, according to the filing. The company expects total financing principal payments to reach about $40 billion over the terms of the schedules. The final contract remains subject to closing conditions, while SpaceX expects to complete it before the end of 2026. The lease schedules are expected to begin in the first half of 2027, when the equipment is delivered.
The Broadcom deal comes as Anthropic expects to secure more computing capacity beyond its current commitments, expand its data center footprint and improve computing efficiency, according to its registration statement filed with the SEC. The company disclosed total purchase and lease commitments exceeding $750 billion, most of them tied to computing and infrastructure, according to the Associated Press. The filing also said lease payments under the five-year equipment arrangement with Broadcom amount to about $125.2 billion excluding interest, payable in quarterly installments. Reuters reported that Anthropic’s computing and infrastructure expenses will remain its largest operating expenses and are expected to continue rising in absolute terms. Broadcom said in April that, beginning in 2027, Anthropic would be able to access about 3.5 gigawatts of computing capacity through Broadcom, with use of the expanded capacity linked to the company’s continued commercial success.
In the SpaceX deal, the company’s chief financial officer said the payback period for infrastructure investments in superintelligence is less than a year as demand for computing accelerates. “As demand for computing continues to accelerate, we see payback periods of less than a year for our investments in superintelligence infrastructure,” the executive added. SpaceX revenue rose 161% year over year to $14.58 billion in the three months ended September 30, according to Reuters. The financial results put the expansion in computing expenditure in the context of the company’s revenue growth, while lease payments remain spread over schedules lasting years. Equipment delivery dates and the start of the schedules remain expected milestones and have not yet been completed.
In the broader market, the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to 7,676.77 points in the October 26 session, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8% to 26,169.38 points, according to the Associated Press. Both indexes closed near record levels, with the S&P 500 1.8% below the high it reached earlier in the month. The AP said AI stocks remained volatile amid investor concerns about higher borrowing costs to build data centers and buy more chips. Results from about one-third of S&P 500 companies are due during the week, while major central banks will announce their latest interest rate decisions, the news agency reported. These developments put financing costs and the timing of computing equipment deliveries at the forefront of investors’ focus on the sector.