June 9 (Reuters) - Apollo and Blackstone are financing a $35 billion expansion of AI computing capacity for Anthropic using Broadcom's custom chips and networking solutions as part of a tie-up between the asset managers and the chipmaker.
The initial commitment will expand the Claude Code creator's AI computing capacity by one gigawatt, the companies said on Tuesday. One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 homes.
The capacity is expected to be deployed at Fluidstack-operated sites beginning mid-2026,
with the cloud computing company providing the physical data-center infrastructure that will run Anthropic's AI systems.
Overall, the partnership plans to enable more than 20 GW in computing capacity for leading AI labs, including OpenAI, through 2028.
Private-equity firms have emerged as a crucial source of funding for AI companies strained by a shortage of costly and supply-constrained AI infrastructure needed to meet rising demand.
Meta in October struck a $27 billion financing deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund its biggest data-center project.
Tuesday's deal also bodes well for Broadcom's push to grow its AI business, which has drawn demand from tech companies looking to reduce their reliance on Nvidia with in-house chips.
The partnership aims to scale the deployment of custom AI chips and computing systems while cutting the cost and power needed to train AI models, Broadcom said.
Apollo is leading the initial investment tranche for the platform, alongside Blackstone's Credit & Insurance business.
In April, Broadcom signed a long-term agreement with Alphabet's Google to develop and supply future generations of custom AI chips for the company's AI racks through 2031.
It also signed a deal to give Anthropic access to about 3.5 GW of AI computing capacity drawing on Google's processors, starting next year.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
