FT: Anthropic offers Blackstone a 10%+ yield to anchor $9B of a $60B 'Project North Star' chip-lease debt package backing its Google TPU lease

Why it matters

【Key points】

The Financial Times reported on Oct 17 (about 00:47 UTC) that Anthropic is offering Blackstone a yield above 10% to finance its latest chip deal. Blackstone funds would put $9 billion into debt backed by Anthropic's five-year chip-lease payments. The debt is part of a roughly $60 billion package dubbed "Project North Star": a $42 billion bank-led Class A senior secured tranche and an $18 billion Class B junior tranche led by Blackstone, which would fund $9 billion itself and syndicate the rest.

Per Reuters and other write-ups, the financing backs the roughly $125.2 billion five-year Google TPU lease commitment disclosed in Anthropic's IPO materials, arranged by Broadcom; the $42 billion senior piece covers about a third of it. Anthropic's prospectus reportedly flags "potential conflicts of interest" from Broadcom acting as both chip supplier and lender. Anthropic and Blackstone have not confirmed; Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report.

【Verifiable】

Financial Times (paywalled): https://www.ft.com/content/cb4034e1-475f-40b9-a5f9-256e91aacb89

Reuters summary: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/anthropic-offers-blackstone-double-digit-010109537.html

【Our read】

1. If the 10%+ yield holds, even a leading AI lab is paying a steep price to borrow for compute at this scale, and lenders are still pricing in AI-infrastructure risk.

2. Lease-backed, tranched structures are becoming the default way to fund AI compute; if completed, this would be among the largest chip financings so far.

3. This rests on media reports citing people familiar with the matter; final terms depend on company or regulatory disclosures.