Anthropic Is Paying Junk-Bond Rates to Buy 1.5 GW of TPUs
The bond market does not ask about AGI; it asks how the money gets paid back.
Three key facts
The Financial Times reported on October 17 that Anthropic's Project North Star aims to raise $60 billion in debt to procure about 1.5 gigawatts of Google's custom TPUs. Blackstone funds plan to buy $9 billion of the $18 billion in subordinated notes — half the total. The coupon is 10%; with original-issue discount and fees, the all-in yield is higher. The subordinated notes are backed by Anthropic's chip lease payments over five years.
The price of money has gone up. Four months ago, Anthropic's Big Sky project raised about $4.4 billion at 8.5%. Now the offered rate on comparable financing is above 10%. For reference, the ICE BofA BB US High Yield Index shows borrowers with similar credit profiles paying around 7%. KBRA has rated Anthropic BB+, one notch below investment grade.
This is not $60 billion in the bank. The remaining $9 billion in subordinated notes could be sold to a broader group of investors, while about $42 billion of senior debt is guaranteed by Broadcom. The deal is still being arranged; Blackstone declined to comment and Anthropic did not respond. The terms are not final; a headline is not a closing.
Wang Dou's Take
Ten percent is not a badge. It is a price tag. Every $1 billion borrowed costs $100 million a year in coupon alone, before discount and fees. And Blackstone is buying subordinated debt that sits behind $42 billion of Broadcom-guaranteed senior debt. If this goes wrong, Blackstone takes the first hit. The price is not just Blackstone being greedy; it is the market putting a risk premium on the AI-compute perpetual-motion machine.
Four months ago the rate was 8.5%. Now it is above 10%, while a comparable BB borrower pays around 7%. If compute were a reliable golden goose, 8.5% would have been snapped up. Having to raise the price to fill the book means lenders are running a different calculation: can revenue growth outrun depreciation and interest?
AI companies can keep talking about scaling laws. Bondholders only count cash flow. A launch event sells the future; a bond covenant writes down five years. The credit market has just moved AI from the faith column to the credit column and repriced it.
Source: The Star · Jinshi Data