Anthropic Offers Blackstone Over 10% Yield on a Junk-Rated Chip Deal
As seen on the 24/7 Wall St. homepage on October 17, 2026.
A double-digit coupon is what one of the best-funded AI labs now pays for chips, and private credit lenders are the ones taking the other side of that junk-rated bet.
BREAKING: Anthropic is offering Blackstone a more than 10% yield to finance its latest chip deal The AI startup was assigned BB+, the highest junk credit rating, by KBRA in June
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Anthropic is turning to private credit to fund its latest chip acquisition, offering Blackstone a yield of more than 10% to take on the financing. That double-digit coupon reflects the cost of capital for a company that, despite being one of the most heavily backed AI labs in the world, sits in junk-bond territory.
Credit ratings firm KBRA assigned Anthropic a BB+ rating in June, which is the highest rung of non-investment-grade debt. A BB+ rating tells lenders the borrower is speculative, not distressed, but it is still below the threshold that many institutional fixed-income funds can touch, which narrows the pool of willing creditors and pushes yields higher.
Blackstone, through its private credit arm, is positioned to step in precisely where traditional bond markets pull back. For private lenders, a 10%-plus yield on a borrower with Anthropic's revenue trajectory and strategic backing from major technology firms is the kind of risk-reward proposition that drives the asset class.
What the deal illustrates is how AI infrastructure spending has outrun even the most generously funded startups' ability to finance it cheaply. When a company raising billions in equity still pays junk rates to lease or buy chips, it signals just how capital-intensive the race for AI compute has become, and how much of that bill is now landing on private credit markets rather than public ones.