A financing package worth about $15 billion is in advanced negotiations to support construction of a new data center campus and accompanying power plant in Hubbard, Texas, according to people briefed on the matter. The loan would be extended to Nexus Data Centers and is being led by a syndicate of banks with Morgan Stanley at the head.
The proposed campus includes an on-site natural gas-fired power plant with generating capacity of 1.6 gigawatts. The financing could be announced imminently, with sources saying the deal might be revealed as soon as today.
Under the reported structure, Google would provide financial backing for the project by guaranteeing billions of dollars in Anthropic's lease and power payment obligations should the AI startup fail to meet those commitments. Those guarantees are tied to four data center leases Anthropic has signed as well as related power purchase agreements connected to the on-site power plant.
The reported package comprises a $14 billion bridge loan alongside a revolving credit facility. As part of its support, Google would receive roughly a 20% equity stake in the data center and power project.
On the hardware side, Anthropic plans to install tensor processing units at the site that Google codesigns with Broadcom. A separate vendor financing arrangement between Anthropic and Broadcom is reported to cover the cost of those chips, aligning equipment procurement with the broader financing structure.
The arrangement displays a financing model in which large technology firms and chip manufacturers use their balance sheets to support infrastructure built for newer AI companies. The report notes that discussions of similar backing have occurred elsewhere - for example, separate talks involving Nvidia have been referenced in relation to a distinct project - but the current package centers on Google, Nexus Data Centers, Anthropic and Broadcom.
For Anthropic, the Hubbard development reflects a deliberate shift toward leasing full data center campuses rather than buying hosted server capacity from cloud providers. The company has inked more than a dozen preliminary lease agreements with U.S. developers and has set a target of at least 10 gigawatts of capacity in the coming years. Tim Hughes, who was hired this year from Stack Infrastructure, is leading Anthropic's leasing initiative.
Takeaway - The proposed financing would combine large-scale bank lending led by Morgan Stanley, vendor chip financing from Broadcom, and significant balance-sheet backing from Google, with key commercial terms including a 1.6 GW on-site power plant and about 20% equity for Google in exchange for its guarantees.