Broadcom is now Anthropic's chip supplier and its lender

Reuters obtained Anthropic's IPO prospectus, and it shows that the company that designs Google's TPUs will also act as Anthropic's lender: Broadcom is lending the Claude developer up to $42 billion for its infrastructure buildout. Much of that money is expected to come straight back, because Anthropic is estimated to become Broadcom's largest compute customer by 2027, as Yahoo Finance reports.

At a glance

• According to Reuters, which read the details in Anthropic's IPO prospectus, Anthropic does more than buy chips from Broadcom: it also leans on Broadcom for equipment leasing and financing.
• The loan comes on top of an April deal in which Google supplies Tensor Processing Unit capacity to Anthropic from 2027. Broadcom designs those chips for Google.
• The prospectus figure is only a ceiling. Analysts already worry about circular financing, where a supplier funds a customer and the customer then spends that money on the supplier's own products.

If you haven't been following, Anthropic's use of Google silicon has grown in steps. According to Tom's Hardware, Anthropic announced more Google Cloud TPU capacity in October 2025, with 1 GW coming online in 2026. Anthropic says it committed in November 2025 to invest $50 billion in American computing infrastructure, and in April 2026 it announced a multi-gigawatt TPU deal with Google and Broadcom.

Broadcom lends up to $42 billion, and Anthropic is estimated to become its largest compute customer by 2027

The figure comes from Anthropic's IPO prospectus, which Reuters obtained. Broadcom is lending up to $42 billion for Anthropic's infrastructure buildout. In return, Anthropic is estimated to spend so much on Broadcom's technologies that by 2027 the Claude developer becomes the chip designer's largest compute customer.

Chips are only one part of the arrangement. Reuters reports that Anthropic also relies on Broadcom for equipment leasing and financing. So Broadcom is selling the hardware behind Claude's future capacity, helping to pay for it, and through leasing letting Anthropic use equipment without buying it outright.

Broadcom designs the Google TPUs that Anthropic expects to receive from 2027

In April, Anthropic announced a deal with Broadcom and Google. Under it, Google provides its Tensor Processing Unit capacity to Anthropic, with supply coming online in 2027. Broadcom designs Google's TPUs, so the silicon in that deal is Broadcom's work even though the capacity comes through Google.

According to Tom's Hardware, a Broadcom securities filing put the deal at roughly 3.5 gigawatts of Google TPU capacity starting in 2027. That comes on top of the 1 GW already coming online in 2026 under the earlier Google Cloud agreement. The same report says Broadcom separately committed to designing and supplying future generations of Google's TPUs through 2031.

Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao called the April agreement "our most significant compute commitment to date." According to Anthropic, the vast majority of the new compute will be located in the United States.

Broadcom joins Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD as suppliers that also fund AI labs

Broadcom is not the first supplier to sit on both sides of the table with Anthropic. Amazon and Microsoft have each signed deals to finance Anthropic and to provide computing capacity for its models. Broadcom's rivals Nvidia and AMD have also funded their own customers, including OpenAI and Anthropic, which then used the money to pay for access to those companies' chips.

Anthropic's own case for buying this much compute rests on demand. According to Anthropic, its run-rate revenue has passed $30 billion, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025. More than 1,000 business customers now spend over $1 million a year, up from over 500 at the February Series G announcement.

The TPUs are one part of a three-chip setup. Anthropic says it trains and runs Claude on AWS Trainium, Google TPUs and NVIDIA GPUs, matching each workload to the chip that suits it best. Amazon remains its primary cloud provider and training partner through Project Rainier.

In circular financing, the lender's money comes back as the lender's revenue

Wall Street analysts and investors have raised concerns about circular investing several times during the AI buildout. A supplier funds a customer, the customer spends the money on the supplier's products, and the supplier books that spending as sales. Think of a car dealer that also writes your loan, so its sales depend partly on the loans it approves.

The worry is a row of dominoes. If one firm falls, the chain reaction could hit the whole AI trade and, with it, the global equity markets that have come to rely on these companies to keep the good times on Wall Street going.

Oddly for a document as detailed as an IPO prospectus, the headline number is only a ceiling. "Up to $42 billion" does not tell us how much Anthropic will actually draw, and the reporting gives no interest rate, term or collateral. According to Tom's Hardware, Broadcom's filing also makes Anthropic's use of the expanded capacity contingent on its continued commercial performance, so the chip side of the deal appears to come with its own conditions.

When the Broadcom-designed TPUs arrive

The next checkpoint is 2027. That is when TPU supply from the April deal is due to come online, and when Anthropic is estimated to become Broadcom's largest compute customer. Tom's Hardware reports that Broadcom's commitment to future TPU generations runs through 2031. The reporting does not say how much of the $42 billion Anthropic will draw, or when, and it gives no listing date for the IPO.