MW Broadcom left investors with a mystery. This analyst thinks he's cracked the case.

By Britney Nguyen

The custom-chip maker added a fourth unnamed customer that is expected to deliver $10 billion in revenue, and Mizuho analysts believe it could be OpenAI rival Anthropic

Broadcom said in September that it added a fourth customer, which is expected to add $10 billion in revenue.

Wall Street has been trying to figure out the mystery of Broadcom Inc.'s fourth major customer, and Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh has a theory.

Broadcom $(AVGO)$ disclosed last month that it had added a fourth customer for its custom-chip business, which is expected to deliver $10 billion in revenue starting in the second half of next fiscal year. Rakesh said the unnamed customer could be AI startup Anthropic, meaning that Broadcom would have two of the hottest operators of large-language models in its pocket.

See more: Broadcom gives Wall Street plenty of reason to cheer, and its stock moves higher

Anthropic is set to reach its internal goal of $9 billion in annualized revenue by the end of this year on high demand for its enterprise offerings, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The AI startup is reportedly modeling its annual revenue run rate to more than double to $20 billion next year in its base case - or $26 billion in its bullish view. The company, which focuses on developing "responsible" AI, told Reuters that its annualized revenue is on track to reach $7 billion this month.

Rakesh said he sees Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan's goal of reaching $120 billion in AI revenue by the end of the decade getting closer. Adding Anthropic as a customer, which his industry checks have suggested, has expanded Broadcom's total addressable market, Rakesh said. That would give the chip maker five customers for its application-specific integrated circuits, including OpenAI, which was announced as a Broadcom customer subsequent to Tan's remarks on the last earnings call.

OpenAI recently announced a partnership with Broadcom to design and deploy 10 gigawatts of custom silicon. Rakesh said he expects OpenAI to start contributing to Broadcom's revenue in the fourth quarter of next year.

Read: Broadcom's stock is soaring on a new OpenAI deal. Why Wall Street is so upbeat.

The chip company's application-specific integrated circuits, which are designed to handle specific AI tasks, compete with graphics processing units from Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $(AMD)$. The Mizuho team raised its estimates for Broadcom's AI revenue to $41.1 billion for fiscal year 2026, $68.1 billion for fiscal year 2027 and $82.7 billion for fiscal year 2028, with the analysts noting that they're bullish on the company's ability to ramp its offerings.

The projections are above Wall Street's consensus estimates of $39.1 billion, $58.6 billion and $65.9 billion, respectively, Rakesh noted.

Rakesh sees OpenAI ramping its gigawatt capacity to two gigawatts next year, three gigawatts in 2027 and four gigawatts in 2028 across custom chips from Broadcom and GPUs from Nvidia and AMD. Other major cloud service providers are estimated to be ramping to two to four gigawatts of capacity over the next few years, which Rakesh said is "notably below headline [gigawatt] amounts."

The Mizuho analysts raised their price target on Broadcom's stock to $435 from $430, "as Anthropic adds additional tailwinds."

See more: Why Broadcom's OpenAI deal may not be all it's cracked up to be

-Britney Nguyen

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October 21, 2025 10:10 ET (14:10 GMT)

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