Anthropic weighs pricier chip debt as Blackstone eyes 10% coupon

Anthropic is in advanced talks with Blackstone over a piece of a $60 billion debt package. The plan is called Project North Star, and it would bankroll a massive leasing deal for Google-built chips.

The catch is the price tag. Blackstone-managed funds have been offered a 10% coupon on roughly $9 billion of junior debt. That is a noticeably steeper rate than Anthropic paid on a similar deal not long ago, which suggests lenders want more in return for funding the AI buildout.

What Project North Star actually buys

The financing is designed to support the acquisition of approximately 1.5 gigawatts of tensor processing units, or TPUs. These are specialized chips Google developed for training and running AI models.

Anthropic would not buy the hardware outright. Instead, the chips would come through a lease structure, closer to leasing a fleet of trucks than buying the trucks yourself.

The $60 billion package splits into two layers. Around $42 billion sits in senior debt, which carries guarantees from Broadcom. The remaining $18 billion is a junior tranche.

Blackstone’s funds have been offered the 10% coupon on about $9 billion of that $18 billion junior slice. Total yields will likely run higher once fees and discounts are factored in. The Broadcom-backed senior portion, with guarantees from the chipmaker, would mark the largest chip financing arrangement to date.

The 150-basis-point problem

The most telling number here is the comparison to Anthropic’s last deal. In June 2026, its previous financing, known as Project Big Sky, priced junior debt at 8.5%.

The new offer of 10% works out to a 150-basis-point increase. On a $9 billion slice, that gap is not trivial.

The jump comes as private credit spreads have widened for AI infrastructure investments. When spreads widen, it means investors are asking to be paid more for taking on the same type of risk.

Credit ratings and the road to investment grade

Anthropic’s credit profile sits on a knife’s edge. KBRA assessed the company in June 2026 and placed it one notch below investment grade.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. Many large institutional investors, such as certain pension funds and insurers, face limits on buying debt rated below investment grade. Sitting just under the line narrows the pool of potential buyers and tends to push borrowing costs up.

The new junior debt is anticipated to receive a rating comparable to Anthropic’s existing grade. If that holds, the company would remain in high-yield territory for this tranche.

Blackstone has characterized the bond offering as an opportunity to gain attractive high-yield exposure.

A familiar playbook with new math

This would not be the first time Blackstone has helped Anthropic secure Google chips. A prior $35 billion financing package arranged by Apollo and Blackstone was also aimed at Google TPU leases.

The pattern reflects a broader shift in how AI labs fund their ambitions. Training frontier models requires enormous compute, and equity alone cannot cover hardware commitments of this magnitude. Debt has become a central part of the toolkit.