Chip collateral financing scale may exceed one trillion US dollars; CoreWeave's bonds have fallen to 80 cents on the dollar.

As investment in AI infrastructure surges, structured financing backed by GPU chips as collateral has emerged as a key funding source for the AI industry, with its market size projected to exceed $1 trillion in the future. Broadcom is in talks with Wall Street institutions to arrange $60 billion in chip financing for Anthropic; SpaceX is reportedly seeking $40 billion in financing for Nvidia chips, while Nvidia previously announced a $500 billion cooperation framework with six financial institutions. Such financing typically holds chips via special purpose vehicles (SPVs), repays debts using cash flow generated from customer contracts, and reduces financing costs with guarantees or backstop commitments from chipmakers. JPMorgan analysts forecast total chip spending could exceed $3 trillion by 2030, with most of that relying on debt financing. However, risks in the AI debt market are also accumulating. Some of CoreWeave’s corporate bonds recently fell to 80% of their face value, with yields rising to around 15%, reflecting market concerns over AI investment returns. As most of these transactions are private placements with limited liquidity, and there is high concentration of cross-exposures among chipmakers, cloud computing giants and emerging AI firms, risks could spread along the supply chain if AI commercialization falls short of expectations.