An AI company's shadow credit guarantee of about 70 billion US dollars raises concerns in the bond market, and Nvidia may provide tens of billion US dollars of residual value support

Comparatively, according to Bloomberg, bond investors are looking at the potential guarantee obligations of large AI companies about $70 billion not included in the balance sheet. As AI chip financing scales up, such residual value support arrangements are likely to increase further. After Nvidia announced a $500 billion financing cooperation plan this week, it may also provide tens of billions of dollars of residual value support for related debt transactions.

This type of financing usually involves borrowing money from a special purpose carrier to buy a chip and rely on cash flow generated by the user contract to repay the debt; if the customer stops paying, the relevant assets are re-leased or sold to repay the debt, and if there is still a gap, the party providing the guarantee makes up. Nvidia CEO Hwang In-hoon said that according to the specific project, the company can provide residual value support for up to 25% of the project.

According to CreditSights analysts, this is actually similar to Nvidia selling put options: the cost is very low during the AI boom phase, but if the industry suddenly falls seriously, customers default, and hardware values fall, the importance of related guarantees will increase markedly. Rating agencies are also beginning to treat some of the arrangements as being similar to debts or obligations.

Previously, Meta had adopted a similar structure in data center debt financing of approximately $27 billion and $13 billion; Broadcom provided most of the residual value support for Anthropic-related AI chip financing of $35 billion. Moody's warned that a significant increase in such transactions in the short term could limit Broadcom's financial flexibility and put pressure on its credit position.