The chipmaker is reportedly in early talks with private credit giants including Apollo and Blackstone to help OpenAI pay for hardware the two are building together
Broadcom is working to arrange more than $50 billion in financing for an AI chip it is developing with OpenAI. The talks are early, and no deal is expected before the end of the year.
The effort, reported by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, would fund OpenAI’s purchases of custom AI chips that the two companies are designing jointly. The Journal reported the discussions on October 7, 2026.
Who is at the table
Some of the biggest names in private credit are in the mix. Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are among the potential lenders that have been approached, according to the Journal’s reporting.
The terms of the financing are still being negotiated. That matters, because “over $50 billion” is a target, not a signed check.
This is also not Broadcom’s first lap around this track. The company previously put together a debt financing package of roughly $60 billion to support Anthropic’s AI chip needs.
A partnership measured in gigawatts
The financing sits on top of a partnership that OpenAI and Broadcom announced in October 2025. The two companies agreed to collaborate on custom AI accelerators, the specialized chips that train and run large AI models.
The partnership aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of AI accelerators by the end of 2029.
The chips come out of OpenAI’s internal program called Nexus. The first generations are named Jalapeño and Serrano.
Broadcom and OpenAI have already done business at significant scale. There have been multiple past orders between the companies worth billions of dollars, though the financial terms have not been disclosed.
Why the money question matters now
The backdrop is rising data center costs. Building AI infrastructure means paying for chips, buildings, power, and cooling, often years before the revenue from AI products arrives.
Private credit firms are increasingly stepping into that role. The Anthropic package and the OpenAI talks together point to a growing pattern of private lenders funding large-scale AI infrastructure.
What this means for the AI hardware race
For Broadcom, arranging financing is a competitive move as much as a financial one. A chipmaker that can deliver custom silicon and help a customer pay for it offers something rivals selling off-the-shelf hardware may struggle to match.
For OpenAI, the arrangement could ease one of the hardest parts of its hardware strategy. Custom chips promise better performance and more control over costs, but they require enormous upfront commitments that a financing package helps spread out.
Investors watching the sector should track a few specific things. First is whether the OpenAI deal actually closes, and at what size, given that talks are early and the timeline extends past year-end.
Second is the final structure. The mix of lenders and terms will reveal how much risk private credit firms are willing to take on AI infrastructure, and at what price.
