Google guarantees Anthropic's Texas data center $15 billion financing enters final negotiations

According to informed sources, a data center developer serving Anthropic is entering the final negotiation stage, planning to raise $15 billion to build a large computing power park and self-sufficient power plant in Texas; Google will provide financial guarantees and supply computing power chips for this project.

The proposed deal under negotiation shows that a banking consortium led by Morgan Stanley will issue a $15 billion loan to Nexus Data Centers for the construction of the computing power park in Hubbard, Texas. The project includes a natural gas self-sufficient power plant with a generating capacity of up to 1.6 gigawatts. This financing could be officially announced as early as today.

Sources indicate that to assist Nexus in completing the debt fundraising, Google is guaranteeing Anthropic's obligations for billions of dollars in data center rent and electricity payments: if this AI startup defaults, Google will fulfill the obligations on its behalf. One source stated that Google's guarantee amount is limited, only covering the minimum guaranteed amount required by the banks to complete this financing.

The guarantee scope includes four data center lease agreements signed by Anthropic and the corresponding power purchase agreements, with electricity supplied by the self-sufficient power plant associated with the park.

Some informed sources revealed that Anthropic plans to deploy Google's and Broadcom's jointly developed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) on a large scale in the park, with these chips being financed separately through a seller's credit agreement signed by Anthropic and Broadcom.

The entire financing plan consists of a $14 billion bridge loan and a revolving credit facility. As compensation for providing guarantees, sources revealed that Google is expected to receive approximately 20% equity in the data center + power plant project.

The Hubbard park project is part of Anthropic's overall strategy: no longer simply renting computing power servers from cloud vendors, but directly locking in self-built computing power park resources as a tenant. Informed sources stated that Anthropic has signed more than ten pre-lease agreements with several U.S. data center developers, aiming to secure at least 10 gigawatts of computing power capacity over the next few years. This leasing expansion is fully managed by Tim Hughes, a former executive from Stack Infrastructure who joined this year.

This transaction model clearly reflects the new financing logic in the current wave of AI: relying on the balance sheets of technology giants and chip manufacturers with investment-grade credit to support infrastructure investments for emerging AI companies that have yet to become profitable. Anthropic's main competitor, OpenAI, has also adopted a similar structure, having negotiated with NVIDIA to secure a $250 billion credit guarantee for a future computing power park in Ohio with a scale of up to 10 gigawatts.

An interesting closed loop: the chip design companies that will supply these computing power bases are precisely the entities providing performance guarantees for the purchasing projects.

Nexus itself is a relatively new data center operator, while Anthropic is locking in hundreds of billions of capital expenditure projects before generating revenue in the park. Google's guarantee significantly reduces the risk for the lending banks; if Anthropic is unable to fulfill its obligations, this tech giant will assume the payment responsibilities as agreed Previously, Google has provided financial guarantees for multiple end tenants of Anthropic's data centers, including TeraWulf and Hut8, which have transitioned from cryptocurrency mining enterprises.

Google disclosed in documents submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that such guarantees are accounted for under credit derivatives in its financial reports. The parent company Alphabet announced last week that as of June 30, the maximum potential risk exposure corresponding to its credit derivative guarantee agreements has risen to $43.8 billion.

In the event of a tenant default, Google has favorable disposal options: in some scenarios, it can take over the underlying lease agreements for its own use or sublease them to other companies; it can also relieve itself of the guarantee obligation by paying a fee, with relevant terms clearly stated in the SEC filing.

The core advantage of the project site is its proximity to large natural gas transmission pipelines. Nexus plans to generate electricity on-site using gas turbines, bypassing the lengthy approval process for grid connection that is common across the U.S. and avoiding construction delays. This "off-grid self-generation" model allows the computing power park to detach from reliance on the public grid and build its own power supply system, with the potential for future capacity expansion beyond the planned 1.6 gigawatts.

The founding team of Nexus consists of seasoned professionals from the energy industry who have previously led large natural gas projects, now replicating their experience in managing large capital projects in the rapidly growing data center sector. CEO Ivan Vanderwalte previously served as an executive at NextDecade, a Houston-based liquefied natural gas export facility developer, and the company's former CFO has also joined Nexus