The AI race is moving beyond chips and into financing.
Broadcom has reportedly held talks to raise around $30 billion in debt to help OpenAI buy chips they are developing together. That would follow a similar $35 billion Anthropic deal and another $60 billion package in the works for Anthropic and others. Nvidia has also partnered with six finance firms to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital to finance customers’ AI infrastructure, while AMD has offered OpenAI and Meta warrants for up to 320 million shares at a penny each.
The basic play is familiar. General Motors and General Electric long helped customers buy their products through financing and infrastructure investment. What is different now is the scale, the uncertainty around the core product and the concentration of risk. As these companies compete through financing and equity incentives, customers have to ask a simple question: are they paying the right price, and can they shop around?
That question matters because much of the financing rests on revenue growth. OpenAI shared updated financials showing annualized revenue approaching $50 billion as of the end of September, about $20 billion less than what had been circulated to investors last month, according to the Financial Times. Anthropic also calculates revenue differently, including revenue booked by its cloud partners. Strip that out and Anthropic’s $60 billion annualized revenue through the end of July is probably about a third less.
Those are big swings on big numbers. They also explain why leaders need to understand what capital is firmly committed, who bears the losses, and whether investment or purchasing agreements constrain their choices. Before building a business around an AI provider, the ecosystem behind it matters just as much as the model itself.
The market has already voted on one part of the story: financing is now a strategic weapon. That may help companies lock in demand, but it also makes the taxpayer, investors and customers more exposed to a sector still trying to prove its economics.
Public markets usually demand more clarity when leverage gets complicated. If these AI firms move toward IPOs, the disclosure burden will only grow. Capital rewards clear rules, not opaque structures dressed up as innovation. In this race, the winners may be the firms that can raise money cheapest — and the losers may be everyone else if the bill shows up later.
