Investors shop GPU and data-center loans at steep discounts, Semafor reports
For a chief credit officer with GPU-backed loan exposure
Semafor reported on Nov. 9 that some investors are shopping whole portfolios of loans at steep discounts after lending heavily for the data-center buildout, and one unnamed person told Semafor that GPU financings in particular are "getting smoked" over worries that the loans will outlive the useful life of the technology.1
The concern is that the life of GPU loans will outlive the useful life of the technology, according to the person Semafor quoted; the report says GPU financings are "getting smoked."1
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Dutch bank ING was looking to sell $500 million of data-center loans, including a $25 million chunk backing Stargate, the OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle project; Semafor relayed this and we have not seen the Bloomberg report or an ING statement.1
Goldman Sachs and Apollo have started marketing a $40 billion chip financing deal for SpaceX, which Semafor described as the largest of its kind; Semafor did not say who is buying or on what terms.1
Ares Management CEO Michael Arougheti said on a recent earnings call that the firm would pass on such deals: "I, for one, personally do not know how to underwrite the decline and depreciation curves on that type of technology."1
Semafor did not name the sellers of the discounted portfolios, the size of the discounts, or the number of loans involved.1
If GPU-backed loans are hard to value because no one can model how fast the chips lose value, banks and funds holding them face markdown and collateral risk. The reception of the SpaceX deal will show whether current marks hold or whether the discount becomes the market price.
Semafor said the next test is whether Goldman Sachs and Apollo can persuade enough investors to buy the $40 billion SpaceX financing; it gave no date.1
Our take. Your GPU loans are secured by chips that may be obsolete before the loan is repaid. Ares's CEO says he can't underwrite that curve. Goldman and Apollo are now asking buyers to take $40 billion of it.
Action. Credit risk: Re-mark useful-life assumptions on GPU and data-center collateral and check loan maturities against chip depreciation schedules.
What our records say
ING centralises AI on one cloud-based platform and a narrow set of priority domains: marketing, chatbots and customer contact, know-your-customer, software engineering and wholesale lending.1 About 600 people work on AI, around 300 of them in a hub in Türkiye.2 Google is its principal AI partner.2
From our records
- ING Groep N.V.bank · latest 3Q26 call: AI for over a decade, agentic mortgages cut approval time from 7 to 5 days (Oct 2026)
- Goldman Sachsbank · latest Argenti: assume any agent could misbehave (Oct 2026) · vendors ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Gemini Enterprise · enforcement 4 actions since 2016; latest CFPB consent order, $45 million (Oct 2024)
- ChatGPT Enterprise (OpenAI)vendor · banks using it (17) Morgan Stanley, BNY, Customers Bank · alternatives Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini Enterprise
Sources
- ReportAI chip financing hits a wall | Semafor Semafor