AI chip financing hits a wall

Investors who rushed to lend for the data-center buildout are now trying to offload loan portfolios at steep discounts, with GPU financings especially under pressure over fears the loans will outlast the technology's useful life, a person told Semafor. Bloomberg reported Friday that Dutch bank ING was looking to dump $500 million of data-center loans, including a $25 million chunk backing Stargate, the OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle project. Goldman Sachs and Apollo have begun marketing a $40 billion chip financing deal for SpaceX, the largest of its kind, while Ares Management CEO Michael Arougheti said on an earnings call that his firm would pass on such deals because he does not know how to underwrite the decline and depreciation curves on that technology.