The AI Ecosystem at a Glance · 1/4

AI Circular Financing Map: Who Funds Whom

at.AI / As of November 2, 2026

Reading IMF Figure 1.2

Figure 1.2 is an arc diagram that lays out, from investors on the left to investees on the right, deals in which a company "receives equity or loans and in return commits future purchases (revenue) to the investor." According to press reports, it covers 14 deals announced since 2023.

Circular map (14 players)

Most of the blue equity arrows from the eight companies on the left converge on OpenAI and Anthropic, and both companies' purchase commitments (green) flow back to the same eight. The lines on the far right show that OpenAI is also an investor in CoreWeave and Stargate, and that Anthropic is also a buyer of compute from SpaceX.

Estimated mapping table

For each number, we assigned the company whose deals best match the features in the figure. The order of the numbers (for example, whether ③ or ④ is Amazon) cannot be determined from the figure, so numbers with the same features should be read as interchangeable.

Among ③④⑤⑦⑧, it is natural to read ⑧, which has the largest debt circle, as either Oracle or SoftBank. Oracle has little of the character of an equity investor, and whether the IMF counts it as an investor is one of the most uncertain points.

Four loop types and where the risk sits

The loops fall into four broad types. What they share is that part of the investors' revenue is supported by money the investors themselves put in.

1. Chip loop (vendor financing): NVIDIA invests $30bn in OpenAI → OpenAI expands its infrastructure → the sites adopt NVIDIA chips. In Ohio, NVIDIA even guarantees the lease. AMD (GPU purchases in exchange for warrants) and Broadcom (chip leases in exchange for a residual value guarantee) follow the same pattern.
2. Cloud loop: Amazon, Google and Microsoft invest in AI labs → the labs buy the investors' cloud under long-term contracts → cloud backlogs swell. Anthropic's Google contract is reported to account for more than 40% of Google's cloud backlog (about $2tn).
3. Debt loop: SoftBank borrows $40bn from banks and invests it in OpenAI → OpenAI orders compute from Stargate and Oracle → Oracle builds with bonds and loans. The same future OpenAI revenue is the repayment source for several layers of debt.
4. Neocloud loop: NVIDIA invests in CoreWeave and guarantees capacity → CoreWeave borrows to buy NVIDIA GPUs → and rents them to OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic. OpenAI is also a CoreWeave shareholder.

Risk concentrates in three places.

• Concentration in a few investees: The IMF notes that "a handful of investees hold most of the financing and revenue commitments." If OpenAI and Anthropic cannot earn enough, valuation losses on the equity, difficulty servicing debt and defaults on revenue commitments would happen at the same time (the report calls this "wrong-way risk").
• Gap between revenue and commitments: Anthropic's April–June 2026 revenue was $11.6bn (per S-1 reports), against future compute payments of more than about $400bn. OpenAI expects to spend $750bn on compute through 2030 (Siècle Digital/WSJ).
• Less visible debt: At Abilene, New Mexico, Ohio and in Anthropic's Broadcom lease, debt tends to sit outside the AI companies' balance sheets in SPVs or guarantees. The lenders range from Japanese banks (Mizuho, SMBC, MUFG) to large US banks and private credit funds (Apollo, Blackstone, Blue Owl).

Peripheral players beyond the 14

Outside the 14 companies, further layers of firms supply money and compute to the same loop. Think of it as a second ring drawn around the figure.

Note that SpaceX (formerly xAI) is both an investee and a lender of compute to Anthropic and Google. Anthropic has ordered up to $120.5bn of NVIDIA-based compute from SpaceX, and SpaceX is seeking to buy those chips with a $40bn loan. Loops are spreading even between competitors.

Extended circular map (from lenders to components)

Reading from top to bottom, money from banks and private credit enters the investor layer (red borrowing) and the site SPVs (red line on the far right). Equity from the investor layer to the AI labs (blue) faces the purchase commitments flowing back from the labs to the investors (green). The labs' orders become the repayment source for neocloud and site-SPV borrowing, and guarantees from NVIDIA and Broadcom (dashed red) support those SPVs. The component suppliers at the bottom neither invest nor guarantee, but are the final recipients of the demand this loop inflates.

Key deals: the facts

Announced or reported deals, newest first. Amounts are as reported and include "up to" and conditional amounts.

Facts vs estimates, caveats

• Confirmed (based on reports and disclosures): The amounts and dates in "Key deals: the facts," and the IMF totals (about $300bn of equity, about $650bn of debt of which about $320bn sits with investees, about $1.4tn of revenue commitments, 14 deals).
• Estimated: Every mapping between numbers and companies. Neither the IMF nor the press has named the companies, and we could not find a public version of the underlying source, Chen, Gautam, and Wu (2026).
• Timing gap: The IMF report was published in mid-October 2026, so it most likely excludes Anthropic's S-1 and the $63bn Broadcom-related financing from late October. This is consistent with ⑫ (Anthropic) having no debt circle.
• Ranges in the numbers: Reports put Anthropic's compute commitments at $417bn, $450bn or $518bn, and some amounts are blank in the public S-1. For Google there are two figures: "about $200bn over five years" (reported) and "at least $114.5bn" (S-1 summary).
• Mapping caveats: Oracle has little of the character of an equity investor, and confidence is also low for Stargate LLC and Mistral AI. Meta, MGX, Nebius or Nscale may be among the IMF's 14.

Sources

Sources for individual deals are listed in "Key deals: the facts." Other sources:

• IMF, Global Financial Stability Report, October 2026, Figure 1.2
• TNW: IMF warns $1.4tn in circular AI deals
• Servola: IMF finds $1.4 trillion of revenue commitments in 14 AI deals
• Metir AI: IMF GFSR Oct 2026 AI circular financing
• Alpesh Patel: The $1.4 Trillion Circle
• Sovereign Magazine: Anthropic IPO, $518bn compute commitments
• DCD: Oracle to raise up to $50bn in 2026
• ComputePrices: AI compute deals