A consortium of banks led by Morgan Stanley is in advanced talks to lend $15 billion to Nexus Data Centers for the construction of a massive artificial intelligence campus in Texas, a project underpinned by financial guarantees and custom chips from Google, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financing package, reported first by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by CNBC, would fund a sprawling data center development in Hubbard, Texas, purpose-built for the AI startup Anthropic. The project includes its own on-site natural gas power plant with 1.6 gigawatts of generating capacity, a strategy designed to bypass the lengthy utility interconnection queues that have stalled data center projects across the United States.

The deal highlights how cash-rich Big Tech companies are deploying their investment-grade balance sheets to finance the infrastructure ambitions of younger, unprofitable AI developers. Anthropic’s chief rival, OpenAI, has pursued a similar playbook, holding talks with Nvidia (NVDA) to arrange a $250 billion backstop for an Ohio campus that could eventually draw 10 gigawatts of power.

Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) has agreed to guarantee billions of dollars of Anthropic’s lease and power-payment obligations in the event the AI startup defaults, the people said. The guarantees cover four data center leases Anthropic has signed, along with corresponding power-purchase agreements tied to a behind-the-meter power plant that will support the campus. Google’s support was limited to the minimum amount required by lenders to complete the financing, one of the people noted.

In exchange for providing that credit backstop, Google is expected to receive an equity stake of roughly 20% in the data center and power project. The financing package itself consists of a $14 billion bridge loan and a revolving credit facility.

Anthropic plans to equip the Hubbard site with tensor processing units, the AI chips that Google co-designs with Broadcom (AVGO). Those chips would be financed through a separate vendor-financing agreement between Anthropic and Broadcom, insulating the semiconductor costs from the main real estate loan. The arrangement illustrates a growing trend: the chip designers that stand to sell hardware into these facilities are often the same firms guaranteeing the projects that will buy them.

The Hubbard development is a cornerstone of Anthropic’s broader strategy to become a direct tenant on large-scale infrastructure projects rather than simply renting server capacity from cloud providers. The company has signed more than a dozen preliminary lease agreements with U.S. developers and is targeting at least 10 gigawatts of capacity over the next several years. The leasing push is led by Tim Hughes, a former Stack Infrastructure executive hired by Anthropic this year.

Nexus Data Centers, a relatively new entrant to the data center industry, was founded by energy-industry veterans with experience building large-scale natural gas projects. Chief Executive Ivan Van der Walt was previously an executive at NextDecade, a Houston-based developer of liquefied natural gas export facilities. Construction at the Hubbard site began in early 2025.

The project’s location offers a key advantage: proximity to major gas pipelines. Nexus plans to generate electricity on-site using its own natural gas turbines, an approach known as “behind-the-meter” that lets a campus build its own power rather than relying on the strained electrical grid. The campus could eventually grow past the planned 1.6 gigawatt capacity, the people said.

Google has increasingly provided financial backstops for data centers where Anthropic is the ultimate customer, including facilities operated by former cryptocurrency miners TeraWulf and Hut8. Alphabet disclosed last week that its maximum potential exposure from credit-derivative backstops had risen to $43.8 billion as of June 30. The company accounts for these arrangements as credit derivatives in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If a tenant defaults, Google retains favorable options: it can take over the underlying leases and use the facilities itself, sublease them to other firms, or terminate its backstop obligation by paying a fee.

The deep financial entanglement between Google and Anthropic has been building for years. Google invested $300 million in the AI lab in 2023 for a stake of about 10%, followed by another $2 billion months later. In April of this year, Google agreed to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, extending a partnership that has become one of the defining alliances in the AI industry. Anthropic has also been diversifying its infrastructure relationships, striking agreements with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) earlier this month and with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in May.

Anthropic and Nexus Data Centers declined to comment. Google and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Note: The deal could be announced as soon as Thursday, according to people familiar with the discussions.