Hell or high water rent on chips

Can the lessee stop paying rent if the chips are late, faulty or lost?

Rent on each pod is its total price spread over a five year term in 20 fixed, equal quarterly instalments, with interest on the outstanding price. Each lease is non-cancellable. The lessee’s duty to pay is absolute and unconditional, with no abatement, set-off, counterclaim or deferment for any reason, including claims against Broadcom or Google or the loss of the equipment. The one carve-out passes Google’s delivery delay credits through to the lessee. This is the aircraft lease model applied to AI chips, and it is what lets the lessor finance the pods. Dell Financial’s framework agreement with Nscale uses the same rule: payment is absolute and unconditional, and any claim about faulty servers goes to the supplier, not the funder.

Randeep Bubbra | Lawyer | Making the next generation of infrastructure financeable · Firm profile · Updated 29 October 2026

What the filed contracts say

Contract	What the filed wording says
Broadcom TPU lease to Anthropic	Rent is the pod’s total price over five years, in 20 fixed and equal quarterly instalments, plus interest.
Broadcom TPU lease to Anthropic	Each lease is non-cancellable by either party.
Broadcom TPU lease to Anthropic	The duty to pay is absolute and unconditional, with no abatement, set-off or counterclaim, even on total loss of the equipment.
Broadcom TPU lease to Anthropic	The only carve-out passes through credits for the chip supplier’s delivery delays.
Dell Financial–Nscale framework agreement	Dell Financial: the duty to pay is absolute and unconditional, whatever the claims against the funder, supplier or manufacturer, the loss of the servers or anyone’s bankruptcy.
Dell Financial–Nscale framework agreement	Dell Financial: the customer’s remedy for faulty servers is against the supplier, not the funder.

The filed wording

Each Lease shall, subject to the terms of this Master Agreement, be non-cancelable by Lessee and Lessor.

Broadcom master equipment lease of Google TPU8i pods to an Anthropic subsidiary, section 2.01(a) · Anthropic S-1/A, Exhibit 10.11

A chip lease that is really a loan Loss, damage and insurance of leased chips Late chips: allocation, component constraints and delay relief Vendor financing of GPU servers, and the bank loan that takes it out Chip lease or GPU loan: the two compared Put it on an issues list All contract clauses

On the deal pages

Financings by the parties to these contracts

The latest debt raised by the companies that signed them, with the terms and the sources on each deal page.

Financing	Borrower or issuer	Date	Amount
Pre-IPO convertible loan-note subscription (initial minimum)	Nscale	15 September 2026	US$2.1bn
Dell short-term equipment lease payment schedules (aggregate)	Nscale	4 September 2026	US$2.54bn
North Carolina GPU DDTL	Nscale	31 August 2026	US$1.2bn
Ward County GPU DDTL	Nscale	31 August 2026	US$1.85bn
Macquarie Iceland GPU facility	Nscale	29 July 2026	US$331.9m

Method

Each extract is quoted from the contract as filed with the SEC, checked against the filed text when it was added; “…” marks words left out. Filers redact commercial terms, so a [***] or [*] is the filer's, not ours. The summaries describe the wording, not how a court would read it, and each contract's defined terms and other clauses can change the effect. General information drawn from public filings. It is not legal advice on any transaction, and using this page does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Views are personal.