Broadcom Said It Didn't Finance Customers, Then Did

TIKR: Broadcom agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion, about a third of a $125.2 billion TPU lease commitment, four weeks after management said third party partners, not Broadcom, provide the direct financing. Broadcom's balance sheet: $14.2 billion of cash from operations in the quarter ended Aug 2 against $532 million of capital expenditure, with net debt down to about $35.4 billion from $59.6 billion in November 2024. Correction to the parent card: it stated that AWS had raised reserved GPU prices for a fourth consecutive quarter, citing a Wells Fargo note relayed secondhand. SDxCentral describes the latest AWS Capacity Block increase as the second in six months. The fourth consecutive quarter figure could not be independently confirmed. The direction, rising GPU rental prices, stands.

The parent card argued that part of the AI buildout is being financed by the sellers of the equipment. Broadcom's own messaging now confirms how fast that line moved. In one month it went from "partners finance customers" to lending up to $42 billion directly, convertible into equity, to the customer expected to be its largest buyer. Broadcom can afford it. That isn't the risk. The risk is concentration: the same company now carries Anthropic as its biggest chip customer, its lessee and its borrower. If Anthropic's revenue grows into its commitments, this works. If it doesn't, Broadcom takes the hit three ways at once. That is the vendor financing structure that ended badly for telecom equipment makers in 2001.