Would include a loan for operator Nexus Data Centers
Would include a loan for operator Nexus Data Centers
Google is reportedly planning to provide financial backing for a multi-billion-dollar data center project in Texas to be used by Anthropic.
The backing could include construction loans for Nexus Data Centers, the company that will operate the data center for Anthropic, reports the Financial Times citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the FT, a consortium of banks is competing to provide financing by the middle of 2026 for the project, which could be as much as $5bn. With Google's backing, this will enable the financing to have a lower cost as it will have a better credit rating.
Plans to provide financial backing come as Anthropic is involved in a lawsuit with the US Department of Defense (now known as the Department of War) after the department designated the company a supply chain risk over a contractual dispute in which Anthropic refused to allow its AI technology to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Anthropic has warned that this status could cost it multiple billions of dollars and that "if investors opt not to invest in Anthropic in the future, Anthropic will be unable to train the next generation of models, further eroding its commercial position and investor confidence."
The data center campus, being developed by Nexus Data Centers, will span 2,800 acres. Anthropic signed a lease for the project earlier this month.
The campus is aimed to offer 500MW of capacity later this year, and could eventually be expanded to around 7.7GW. The site is located near a major gas pipeline, which would enable the site to be powered with gas turbines owned by Nexus.
Limited information about Nexus is available online, but the company is headed by CEO Ivan Van der Walt, who has a background in the energy industry.
In December 2025, Nexus proposed a data center campus for around 2,000 acres of land in Hubbard, Texas. At the time, the project was expected to offer 612MW powered by natural gas turbines. Construction has begun on the project.
Hubbard is located south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and northeast of Waco.
Google has long been a supporter of Anthropic, having previously invested around $2bn in 2023 and another $1bn in 2025. In March 2025, court documents revealed Google held a 14 percent stake in the AI company. Late last year, the two companies signed a major cloud capacity agreement which would give Anthropic access to more than 1GW of capacity and up to one million TPUs.
This is not the first time Google has provided financial backing for an AI data center project. Google is backing AI cloud firm Fluidstack for around $1.3bn of its long-term lease obligations. If Fluidstack becomes insolvent or defaults on a lease payment, Google has the option to pay a lease termination fee or take on the lease as a tenant on a discounted rate.