Nvidia’s $500 billion plan envelops Wall Street in its AI frenzy
With slow progress on the complex deals, Nvidia’s chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, decided to change tack: He went public this week with the effort, saying the group is aiming to collectively finance AI computing deals totaling $500 billion — a round figure with no obvious provenance.
In doing so, he was seeking to assure Nvidia’s investors that there are plenty of deep-pocketed firms ready to finance his clients, particularly AI startups such as Anthropic PBC and OpenAI that are key to Nvidia’s future demand. While he’s bullish on AI spending overall, his company has been seeking to broaden its customer base beyond hyperscalers including Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., many of which are trying to create their own components.
Huang wanted something else, too. After months of working with the trio of financiers, his $5.5 trillion firm called the original group up just days before the announcement to say that three other lenders — KKR & Co., BlackRock Inc. and Brookfield — were joining the pack and committing to financing a chunk of the debt.
With the partnership out in the open, some of the largest firms on Wall Street are standing by to arrange hundreds of billions of dollars in financing for chip deals, while Nvidia itself will backstop a portion of those deals with guarantees. No deals were signed by the time of the announcement, which was left deliberately vague, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.
Investors have been concerned that Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia, whose chips are crucial in many of the data centers powering the global AI surge, and other companies have been stoking a bubble in the industry through circular financing. That’s been fueled by deals where Nvidia has invested in some of its clients such as CoreWeave Inc.
Initially, the financing venture’s framing unnerved debt investors, concerned about how exposed it left the chipmaker to more leverage. But that eased as Huang clarified that Nvidia’s support would be for as much as 25% of an opportunity and the firm would assess each project on a case-by-case basis.
Agencies“The announcement reflects the financing need as we look to build out digital and AI related infrastructure in the coming years,” Alan Synnott, global head of real assets at advisory firm Mercer, said in an interview. “With these partnerships, you’ll actually see a range of strategies developing likely across infrastructure, real estate credit, and maybe even private equity that will offer investors a lot more access paths.”
Representatives for Goldman, Apollo, Blackstone, KKR and BlackRock declined to comment. A Nvidia spokesperson had no immediate response, while a representative for Brookfield didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this week, when Huang appeared with executives from the six firms on CNBC to talk up the deal, the segment lasted more than 30 minutes and included few additional details. Goldman CEO David Solomon, Blackstone President Jon Gray, Apollo President Jim Zelter and Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt appeared in studio with Huang, while KKR’s Waldemar Szlezak, who leads its digital infrastructure business globally, also joined. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was on video while traveling.
Now, those executives are turning to their clients, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and insurance firms, to gauge their appetite for buying up the debt. Executives in the television discussion indicated that some of the money could come from retail investors.
The $500 billion commitment has no set time frame and is a combination of deals that have been discussed, as well as forecasts of demand in the near future, according to people familiar with the matter. Each lender will be able to vet individual customers for creditworthiness before committing.
While much of the total amount will be raised through private credit markets, the scale is so large that public markets will need to be tapped. That’s expected to come in the form of bonds — many set to be tens of billions of dollars each — issued by special vehicles that would lease chips to Nvidia clients.
One person involved in the announcement described Huang’s intention as setting up a debt shopfront as an advertisement to customers and concerned investors. If the deals don’t happen as announced or go awry, that could pose a risk to the reputation of the financing partners and Nvidia, the person said.
For some of the financing partners, the venture promises that the companies will be in line to collect fees from the deals. While Goldman is the only firm with a dedicated banking arm, Apollo could also unlock more fees as it expands its trading operation, selling larger chunks of the loans it originates to other investors and making markets for clients.
For Goldman, it’s the culmination of years of building up close ties to the chipmaker. Jung Min, who was named Goldman’s co-head of its technology, media and telecom practice last year after two decades at the firm, has covered Nvidia for years from his San Francisco base. Toshiya Hari, the former Goldman analyst who covered Nvidia, joined Nvidia last year to work in investor relations.
The splashy affair contrasts with a similar announcement from Broadcom Inc. just weeks earlier. The chipmaker tapped Apollo and Blackstone as anchor investors for plans to finance more than 20 gigawatts of compute capacity for frontier AI labs including Anthropic and OpenAI through 2028 — potentially requiring hundreds of billions of dollars.
Broadcom, however, already had $35 billion of financing in hand through a deal with Apollo and Blackstone when it unveiled the partnership.
Broadcom backstopped most of the debt on that first deal to help attract investors, while Apollo structured the deal to keep the borrowing off Broadcom’s balance sheet. Blackstone has already sounded out investors for another transaction of more than $30 billion, Bloomberg reported.
The Nvidia debt deals will vary according to the type of customer and the owner of the data centers that will house the chips. The collateral that backs the loans is expected to be some combination of the underlying chips and the offtake agreements, said some of the people.
If a deal goes awry and Nvidia clients can’t afford the chips, the chips can be rented by others, helping to reduce the risk of individual Nvidia customers defaulting on the debt, according to some of the people.
Skeptics say that valuations of the underlying chips is currently inflated by record demand, driven by the hype around AI. One of the worries is that the intense buildup of AI infrastructure might fuel an oversupply of computing power years in the future.
For all the questions, there’s no doubt other banks and investment firms still want in. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management arm, for one, is discussing how it can be involved as well, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the bank declined to comment.
And just minutes after Monday’s announcement, Morgan Stanley, long a significant lender to AI infrastructure, put out a release saying it was launching a framework to facilitate $1.5 trillion of funds in US innovation and national security. Top of its list: AI and advanced computing.
