San Jose, October 2: Global semiconductor giant Broadcom has directed banks to help it raise $60 billion to fund custom artificial intelligence (AI) chip manufacturing and infrastructure commitments, mainly driven by computing demand from AI research lab Anthropic. This sweeping capital raise comes at a time when top technology firms are racing to build next-gen data center capacity while facing severe hardware bottlenecks across the AI supply chain.
The landmark $60 billion financing comes at a time when Big Tech companies are working to meet insatiable demand for compute power. Google has raised US$3.89 billion in Australia as it looks to meet the demand, with its cash flow turning negative in July this year for the first time since listing.
The debt raise is expected to help meet Anthropic’s growing need for computing power. Anthropic will be leasing Broadcom’s chips and data center equipment as it looks to compete for market share in the AI ecosystem.
For Broadcom, this model of funding its customer’s purchase essentially means paying for the demand of its own products. Its leading competitor, Nvidia has also taken a similar approach, partnering with six large financial firms to raise more than $500 billion to help its customers buy its chips.
Under the agreement, the debt raised by Broadcom can eventually be converted into equity shares of Anthropic, allowing Broadcom to take its overall AI semiconductor revenue to reach $115 billion by the year 2027.
