A new paper by Craig Nicol, Oleg Melentyev, and Charlie Callan of Sona Asset Management, a London-based credit hedge fund, maps the extensive financial connections within the AI universe. The report reveals numerous links, such as equity, debt, and lease commitments, between key entities, with nodes sized by their reported commitment amounts. The analysis spans 176 deals totaling $3.6 trillion, involving 202 entities over three and a half years up to August 2026, though the true value may be higher due to undisclosed deals.
OpenAI and Anthropic are identified as central to this ecosystem, having accumulated vast commitments. Despite their prominence, the analysts suggest their lack of positive unadjusted earnings might warrant closer attention. The report details significant circular financial relationships, such as Amazon's $50 billion investment in OpenAI coupled with a $100 billion compute commitment from OpenAI, and Microsoft's $135 billion ownership recapitalization of OpenAI alongside OpenAI's $250 billion purchase commitment to Microsoft Azure.
Further examples of circularity include NVIDIA's conditional commitment to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI by 2025 (with an additional $30 billion indicated for 2026), while OpenAI commits hundreds of billions to Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon for cloud and compute services. These cloud providers are, in turn, among the largest buyers of NVIDIA's silicon, completing the financial circle. The report concludes that the AI financing web increasingly resembles a "closed-loop system."
Out of the 176 transactions analyzed, approximately 120 are flagged with "high circularity," indicating multiple relationships between entities where capital often flows in a loop. These findings underscore the complex and interdependent nature of financial arrangements underpinning the rapidly expanding AI industry.
