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Private equity giant Apollo Global Management is betting on the AI chip market at an unprecedented scale, with two pending chip deals totaling $75 billion. This not only far exceeds the $27 billion in chip financing raised by the largest neocloud CoreWeave since 2023 but is also more than 10 times that of the second-ranked competitor. According to the latest report from The Information, SpaceX announced it will lease NVIDIA Vera Rubin chips worth $40 billion, which Apollo will purchase through its subsidiary and then lease to SpaceX. Earlier, in June this year, Apollo announced a $35 billion financing arrangement jointly with Broadcom and Blackstone to purchase Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and lease them to Anthropic. Once these deals are completed, in terms of AI chip holdings, Apollo will rank just behind mega cloud service providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, becoming the non-hyperscale player with the strongest global chip reserves, fundamentally changing the competitive landscape of AI infrastructure. Apollo earns fees by brokering these deals and managing financing funds. Two giant deals establish chip dominance Apollo's current chip layout consists of two core deals. The first is the $35 billion deal announced in June: Apollo, together with Broadcom and Blackstone, purchased Google's TPUs and leased them to AI startup Anthropic. The second is the $40 billion deal revealed last week alongside SpaceX's announcement: Apollo, through a subsidiary, purchased NVIDIA Vera Rubin chips and then leased them to Elon Musk's SpaceX. The combined $75 billion in deals makes Apollo's scale in chip financing far exceed any neocloud. According to data compiled by The Information, CoreWeave has raised $27 billion through chip-collateralized financing since 2023, ranking first among neoclouds; followed by Valor ($5.4 billion), Nscale ($4.9 billion), IREN ($3.9 billion), Lambda ($1.5 billion), Crusoe ($1.1 billion), Nebius ($775 million), and Sharon AI ($356 million). It is worth noting that the above statistics only cover financing secured by GPU and TPU collateral and do not include convertible bonds and credit lines issued by various neoclouds for operational financing. Additionally, last week there was another $63 billion deal jointly arranged by Citigroup, Bank of America, and Blackstone to finance Anthropic's purchase of Broadcom chips, which is not included in the above comparison because the actual holders of these chips were not disclosed. Chip financing model: scalable replication of SPV structure The chip financing structure used by Apollo is derived from the special purpose vehicle (SPV) model jointly pioneered by CoreWeave and Blackstone in 2023. Under this arrangement, the neocloud and its financial partners jointly establish an SPV, which issues debt to purchase chips, and the rent paid by the chip end users is used to repay the debt. Apollo's operational logic follows this model but on a much larger scale. Unlike many neoclouds, Apollo does not invest additional capital to build data centers for storing chips; its business model is more focused—purchasing chips, leasing them to end users, and earning transaction brokerage fees and fund management fees. Hyperscale cloud service providers do not need to rely on SPV structures; they can directly procure chips through free cash flow, equity issuance, or traditional corporate bonds. This is the fundamental difference between Apollo and hyperscale cloud providers. Insurance capital drives Apollo's transformation Apollo's chip gamble reflects the profound transformation of this veteran private equity firm over the past decade. Founded over 36 years ago by billionaire Leon Black, Apollo was initially known for leveraged buyouts, including the nearly $30 billion acquisition of casino giant Harrah's Entertainment in 2008. Over the past decade, Apollo has absorbed large amounts of capital from insurance companies. Insurance funds prefer asset classes with yields higher than investment-grade bonds but still maintain investment-grade credit ratings, and chip financing deals perfectly meet this demand. This capital structure shift has provided Apollo with ample ammunition for large-scale deployment in AI infrastructure. Chip financing is a brand-new business direction for Apollo, but its underlying logic is consistent with traditional private credit: providing structured financing secured by assets and earning stable interest spreads. As AI computing power demand continues to expand, Apollo is pushing this logic to a new scale.