Apollo Global Management has closed a $35 billion credit facility backing AI chip purchases by Broadcom and Anthropic, then opened secondary trading windows for dealer and money manager participation. The structure marks the largest private credit transaction ever recorded and the first time semiconductor capital equipment financing has breached the scale of mega-cap M&A bridge loans.
The facility funds chip purchases across two counterparties with different risk profiles. Broadcom's tranche finances internal AI accelerator production and third-party fulfillment contracts. Anthropic's portion covers inference compute buildout tied to its Claude model deployment schedule through 2027. Apollo holds the senior position and has begun syndicating junior tranches to insurance affiliates and external credit funds at yields between SOFR + 525 and SOFR + 725, depending on tenor and collateral priority. Secondary bid-ask spreads opened at 78 basis points on the Broadcom paper and 142 basis points on the Anthropic exposure, tighter than comparable private credit secondaries for data center real estate or hyperscaler capex loans.
The transaction rewrites the economics of AI infrastructure financing in three directions. First, it pulls forward $35 billion in chip demand that would otherwise have been financed on balance sheet or through vendor payment terms, accelerating revenue recognition for foundries and equipment manufacturers by six to nine months. Second, it creates a tradable instrument class for AI capex risk, previously confined to equity or project finance structures. Third, it establishes Apollo as the liquidity backstop for compute-intensive model builders who cannot access public debt markets at scale. Anthropic's inclusion signals that private credit now extends beyond hardware manufacturers into the model layer, where cash flow visibility remains speculative but collateral value—physical chips and contracted compute—is measurable.
The facility's activation coincides with tightening in the leveraged loan market, where AI-related issuance has declined 31% quarter-over-quarter as bank syndicates pull back from long-dated tech exposure. Apollo's structure bypasses that bottleneck by using insurance balance sheets and separately managed accounts, not bank capital. The facility allows Broadcom to maintain supplier pricing leverage without diluting equity, while Anthropic gains access to $12 billion in compute capacity without triggering the governance covenants that come with venture debt or strategic equity.
Watch for three follow-on signals in the next 60 to 90 days. First, whether Nvidia or AMD approach Apollo for similar non-dilutive chip financing structures, which would indicate this facility is a template, not a one-off. Second, whether insurance investors begin quoting credit default swap curves on AI chip collateral, creating a hedging market for semiconductor exposure. Third, whether Anthropic's next funding round includes a debt refinancing component rather than pure equity, signaling that private credit is now a permanent part of model-builder capital structures.
Apollo has not disclosed pricing on the senior hold, but secondary markets are already valuing the Broadcom exposure inside of SOFR + 450, tighter than most aircraft leasing facilities and in line with investment-grade private placements.