Apollo and Blackstone back Anthropic’s $35bn compute push

TL;DR:

• Apollo and Blackstone are financing a $35bn expansion of Anthropic’s AI computing capacity, using Broadcom’s custom chips.
• The first tranche adds one gigawatt — enough to power about 750,000 homes — at Fluidstack sites from mid-2026.
• The wider partnership aims to enable more than 20GW for leading AI labs, including OpenAI, by 2028.

Private capital is becoming the backbone of the AI build-out. Apollo and Blackstone said on Tuesday they are bankrolling a $35bn expansion of Anthropic’s computing capacity, in a tie-up with chipmaker Broadcom that leans on custom silicon rather than Nvidia’s dominant processors.

Private equity fills the compute gap

The initial commitment adds one gigawatt of capacity, deployed at sites operated by cloud firm Fluidstack from mid-2026. Across the partnership, the backers plan to enable more than 20GW for leading labs including OpenAI through 2028. Apollo is leading the first investment tranche alongside Blackstone’s credit and insurance arm.

The deal underlines how private-equity firms have become a crucial funding source for AI companies squeezed by the cost and scarcity of infrastructure. Meta struck a $27bn financing deal with Blue Owl Capital in October for its largest datacentre project. It also advances Broadcom’s push into AI, drawing demand from firms keen to cut reliance on Nvidia — Broadcom signed a custom-chip agreement with Google in April and a deal giving Anthropic about 3.5GW drawing on Google processors.

Looking forward

For UK businesses, the financing arithmetic matters because it sits beneath the tools they increasingly rely on. The same week Anthropic released Fable 5 to the public and filed IPO plans, this deal shows the scale of capital now required to keep frontier models running — and how reliance on a handful of labs, chipmakers and financiers concentrates risk across the AI supply chain.