Broadcom is partnering with private-equity duo Apollo Global Management and Blackstone to equip fleets of artificial-intelligence data centers with Broadcom chips and other hardware.
The trio announced the launch of a so-called AI XPV Platform on Tuesday designed to power more than 20 gigawatts of compute capacity through 2028. Apollo and Blackstone are initial anchor investors. The collaboration will help Broadcom offer customized accelerators and networking solutions to frontier AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI.
The platform will begin with a $35 billion investment, led by Apollo, to facilitate Anthropic’s previously-announced capacity expansion of more than 1 gigawatt of compute infrastructure expected this year. Anthropic is leasing infrastructure from data-center developer Fluidstack for that expansion.
Broadcom stock rose 0.5% on Tuesday as investors continued to buy last week’s dip in tech stocks. Shares of Apollo and Blackstone rose 3.7% and 5%, respectively.
In a news release Tuesday, Apollo described the collaboration as a new model for accelerating the AI buildout, pairing a chip maker with long-term private capital.
It may also indicate that Broadcom is taking a more active role in financing the AI ecosystem. The company is best known for designing custom chips for six customers, including Google-parent Alphabet and OpenAI. Now, Broadcom will not only sell chips, but also help its customers grow their data-center footprints.
“We are at a historic inflection point where the demand for AI compute is fundamentally reshaping the global economic landscape,” said Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, adding that the platform enables the company’s “rapidly scaling customers, starting with Anthropic, to realize their most ambitious AI visions with speed and certainty.”
Among those customers, OpenAI and Anthropic will soon have access to tens of billions of dollars in public investment as well. OpenAI has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, the AI lab announced Monday, just a week after Anthropic did the same.