Anthropic weighs pricier chip debt as Blackstone eyes 10% coupon

Anthropic is in advanced talks with Blackstone over a piece of a $60 billion debt package. The plan is called Project North Star, and it would bankroll a massive leasing deal for Google-built chips. The catch is the price tag. Blackstone-managed funds have been offered a 10% coupon on roughly $9 billion of junior debt. That is a noticeably steeper rate than Anthropic paid on a similar deal not long ago, which suggests lenders want more in return for funding the AI buildout. What Project North Star actually buys The financing is designed to support the acquisition of approximately 1.5 gigawatts of tensor processing units, or TPUs. These are specialized chips Google developed for training and running AI models. Anthropic would not buy the hardware outright. Instead, the chips would come through a lease structure, closer to leasing a fleet of trucks than buying the trucks yourself. The $60 billion package splits into two layers. Around $42 billion sits in senior debt, which carries guarantees from Broadcom. The remaining $18 billion is a junior tranche. Blackstone’s funds have been offered the 10% coupon on about $9 billion of that $18 billion junior slice. Total yields will likely ru...