The race to build artificial intelligence is now an AI chip financing story as much as a technology one. Broadcom, Oracle and SpaceX are each shopping enormous debt packages to private-credit lenders, according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive. Nobody has confirmed anything on the record, so treat every number below as reported, not final.
Broadcom’s $50 Billion Push for OpenAI Chips
Broadcom has spent recent weeks trying to arrange more than $50 billion in financing. If it lands, the money would fund the custom AI chip it is building with OpenAI. Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are among the lenders approached, per Bloomberg’s summary of the WSJ report.
Reports call the OpenAI program “Nexus.” It targets multiple gigawatts of capacity through 2029. The talks are early, though, and the final size could change. Even so, this kind of AI chip funding is only getting bigger.
This is not Broadcom’s first trip to the debt market this season. In fact, Bloomberg notes the company is fresh off launching a $60 billion debt financing tied to Anthropic’s AI build-out. As a result, Broadcom is clearly turning chipmaking into a lending business.
Oracle Eyes Off-Balance-Sheet AI Hardware Financing
Oracle is talking with Apollo and Goldman Sachs about a financing framework. It would pay for hardware inside a one-gigawatt data center, Investing.com reported. So far, no deal size has surfaced. Still, chip financing deals like this one rarely stay small.
The structure is the interesting part. Private investors would fund an off-balance-sheet entity that buys the chips. That entity would then lease them back to Oracle.
That setup can make a borrower’s credit metrics look healthier. However, analysts warn it can also obscure true leverage. Oracle has already felt the heat: bondholders sued it in January, alleging it failed to disclose how much more debt its AI buildout would need.
SpaceX Seeks $40 Billion Tied to Nvidia Chips
SpaceX has talked to lenders about roughly $40 billion tied to Nvidia chips. The Financial Times reported the talks first, on Tuesday. Per Reuters’ account of the FT story, the package splits into about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt. That makes it one of the largest AI chip debt packages yet.
Sources expect Apollo to lead, and Pimco is among the lenders in talks. Insiders expect closing in 2027. Bloomberg stresses that the talks are preliminary and might never become a completed deal.
Apollo knows this territory. It has already financed Musk-world compute, including a $7 billion deal for xAI’s Colossus 2 chip rental. SpaceX absorbed xAI in February.
Why the Lending Wave Matters
Add it up and the three asks total more than $90 billion. Oracle’s unreported piece would push it higher. For context, Oracle raised $25 billion in a bond sale in February and drew record orders. It has also said it expects to raise $45 billion to $50 billion this year through debt and stock.
Meanwhile, the financial industry is lining up behind the trend. Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR partnered with Nvidia in August on platforms meant to mobilize more than $500 billion of outside capital. Reuters also cited a Morgan Stanley estimate that AI infrastructure could need about $1.5 trillion of external financing by 2028. At that scale, AI chip financing becomes a market of its own.
The chips are becoming the collateral. That is a big shift from the days when tech giants paid for hardware out of cash flow.
What to Watch Next in AI Chip Financing
Broadcom and Oracle reportedly want to close before the end of 2026. SpaceX is looking at 2027. In the meantime, watch for company confirmations, SEC filings and final deal sizes. These filings will show how AI hardware financing actually gets structured.
Terms matter too. Whether the debt is secured or unsecured, and whether anyone guarantees it, will show how much risk lands on lenders versus the borrowers. The AI boom is no longer just about who has the best chip. It is about who can borrow the most to buy it.
