In 2023, Blackstone led a private credit loan to AI cloud provider CoreWeave. The $2.3 billion deal used valuable Nvidia GPUs as collateral.
The transaction pioneered chip-backed debt, allowing AI-focused companies to borrow against critical hardware to raise large sums. It helped establish a market for structured financing secured by AI chips, which could potentially reach $1 trillion.
This financing has become an important source of funding for the AI industry's massive infrastructure expansion. Since the CoreWeave loan, other major financial players have entered the market. Nvidia and Broadcom are also involved in arranging tens of billions of dollars in similar financing structures.