Reports: Anthropic offered Blackstone a yield above 10% on chip debt

A Reuters brief carried by Yahoo Finance, with a published time of 2026-10-17T01:01:09Z and a 16 October dateline, says the Financial Times reported on Friday that Anthropic is offering Blackstone a yield of more than 10% to finance its latest chip deal. The brief says Blackstone funds would invest $9 billion in that debt, backed by Anthropic’s five-year lease payments on the chips. It cites people familiar with the matter. Reuters says it could not immediately verify the report. The brief does not say whether Anthropic, Blackstone or Google commented.

The figures below come from the Reuters brief and an English report in Il Sole 24 Ore, dated 17 October 2026. Il Sole describes the financing and, for the negotiation, cites the British newspaper.

What Il Sole adds

Il Sole says Anthropic offered Blackstone terms on a $60 billion debt facility called Project North Star, to procure about 1.5 gigawatts of customized semiconductors developed by Google. It says sources familiar with the negotiations, as cited by that newspaper, have Blackstone’s funds set to invest $9 billion in the subordinated tranche, and that the tranche totals $18 billion. Il Sole says the debt is secured by payments under five-year leases Anthropic would pay for the chips.

The price of the slice is not worded the same way in the two open reports. Reuters, citing the Financial Times, says a yield of more than 10%. Il Sole says Blackstone was offered a coupon of 10%, with a higher overall yield once issue-price discounts and other fees are counted. Both are versions of a Financial Times report. They are not two separate measurements.

Il Sole says the rest of the subordinated debt is expected to be placed with a wider set of investors in the coming months, possibly on less expensive terms. Its sentence says “the remainder of the 9 billion,” which does not make clear whether that is the other $9 billion of the $18 billion tranche. This account leaves that sentence as Il Sole wrote it.

Il Sole also says that four months earlier Anthropic raised around $4.4 billion through a similar deal called Project Big Sky, at 8.5%, “as previously reported by the Financial Times.” The Reuters brief does not mention Project North Star, the $60 billion total, the $18 billion tranche, Google, the 1.5 gigawatts, or Project Big Sky. Those lines are Il Sole’s account of the newspaper. Il Sole, like Reuters, does not report a comment from Anthropic, Blackstone or Google.

Why the yield is the number that matters

Subordinated debt is paid after the senior lenders. If the lease payments are not enough for every creditor, that slice waits. The yield is the extra return these reports say was offered for taking that later place. A higher yield is a higher cost of the money, for the borrower. Il Sole presents the step from the 8.5% it attributes to Project Big Sky, via an earlier Financial Times report, up to a yield above 10%, as a higher cost of debt for Anthropic. That comparison has the same limit as the rest of the story: it is unnamed people, relayed from the Financial Times, and Reuters says it has not verified the report. It is not a filing.

A separate set of reports, on Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue, is covered in a 15 October post. Those revenue figures are not in the debt briefs read here.