By Hillary Remy
Publication Date: 2026-10-02 19:47:00
Artificial intelligence has a funding problem that dwarfs most corporate budgets. Bank of America forecasts that AI capital spending could top $5 trillion between 2026 and 2030, with roughly $1.2 trillion of it needing outside financing.
Most of the gap sits with Oracle (ORCL), SpaceX (SPCX), CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius (NBIS), where spending runs about $700 billion more in projected capital spending than operating cash flow.
Nvidia’s answer arrived on August 10, when it signed deals with six major asset managers to mobilize more than $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure, according to a Nvidia statement. The pitch is bold. Nvidia shares closed down 2.86% that day, while Apollo and KKR both rose more than 6%.
Also read: Nvidia, SK Hynix send strong signal to Micron investors
Lenders want more protection than Nvidia offered
Some lenders want higher guarantees than Nvidia first outlined, even for its industry-leading AI chips. Banking sources and credit managers said the August plan, announced with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR, had envisioned chips as collateral with only a limited guarantee.
The structure works like a lease. A financing platform buys the chips, leases them to the customer and collects payments tied to the compute revenue. Nvidia backstops part of the residual value in some arrangements, which also lets the lender charge a lower rate.
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