Anthropic Is Still Frantically Securing Compute: $895.4 Billion in Commitments, Even Old Coal Plants Are Fair Game

Original author: Su Yang

Original editor: Xu Qingyang

Original source: Tencent Tech

AI companies are becoming large-scale infrastructure buyers.

Anthropic's expansion path has extended from training models and competing for enterprise customers to building data centers, procuring chips, and coordinating power resources. To secure sufficient computing capacity, the company has begun directly intervening in work that was previously handled primarily by cloud service providers and infrastructure operators.

On November 2 local time in the United States, Anthropic submitted an updated prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing supplemented relevant financial data for the third quarter of 2026 and disclosed long-term procurement and lease arrangements.

The filing shows that computing power has become the most important cost item in Anthropic's expansion process. To meet the training needs of the Claude model and the invocation demands of enterprise customers, the company has not only signed long-term agreements with cloud service providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, but has also begun directly procuring chips, participating in data center construction, and seeking power and facility resources from former cryptocurrency mining companies and new cloud service providers.

Revenue grows 12-fold, operating losses reappear

The updated prospectus shows that Anthropic's third-quarter revenue was $16.96 billion, up from $11.56 billion in the second quarter and far above approximately $1.38 billion in the same period of 2025.

In the first three quarters of this year, Anthropic's cumulative revenue was $33.242 billion, compared with $2.545 billion in the same period last year, an increase of approximately 12-fold.

However, revenue growth did not bring about a simultaneous improvement in operating profit.

In the third quarter, Anthropic's operating expenses rose to $17.5 billion, compared with $10.6 billion in the second quarter. The company recorded an operating loss of $567 million for the quarter, whereas it had achieved an operating profit of $974 million in the second quarter. Computing and infrastructure expenses reached approximately $9.9 billion, nearly double the approximately $5.6 billion in the second quarter.

Anthropic attributed the swing to operating loss primarily to short-term computing power procurement. As customer demand growth exceeded the computing supply previously locked in, Anthropic had to purchase additional computing resources on the spot market, and short-term procurement prices were significantly higher than multi-year agreements.

In the third quarter, Anthropic's short-term computing power procurement amounted to approximately $5 billion. In addition, a non-cash expense of approximately $2 billion related to an employee donation matching program also affected the quarter's operating results.

Excluding stock-based compensation and the aforementioned donation matching expense, Anthropic's adjusted operating margin in the third quarter was approximately 15%, down from 19% in the second quarter. The decline in adjusted margin reflects that amid revenue expansion, computing power procurement and other operating costs are still eroding profit margins.

Changes also appeared on the pricing side. Anthropic disclosed that from the second quarter to the third quarter, the revenue increase brought by customer usage growth was partially offset by price cuts on new model versions and contract discounts, with an impact of approximately $600 million.

Anthropic's third-quarter net loss was $23.29 billion, down from $66.3 billion in the second quarter. The cumulative net loss for the first three quarters reached $104.039 billion, but approximately $94.3 billion of that was related to fair value changes in financial instruments such as convertible notes and derivative liabilities, mainly affected by the company's rising valuation.

$895.4 billion in commitments, nearly half to be fulfilled before 2030

The prospectus discloses that as of the end of September, Anthropic's cumulative expenditure commitments formed through procurement commitments and lease agreements reached $895.4 billion, the vast majority of which was related to computing resources and infrastructure.

Of this, approximately $447.5 billion is expected to be fulfilled before December 31, 2030, with the remainder extending from 2031 to 2045. Commitments maturing within the next 12 months total approximately $69.8 billion.

This amount does not equal interest-bearing debt already incurred, nor does it mean Anthropic needs to pay the full amount immediately. It includes different types of procurement contracts, equipment leases, and data center-related agreements, with payment timelines spread over many years into the future. However, some contracts are highly binding, and even if actual usage falls below expectations, the company may still need to bear corresponding payment obligations.

In terms of contract composition, lease commitments not yet commenced total approximately $321.4 billion, and fixed minimum procurement commitments total approximately $265.6 billion. These long-term arrangements lock in future computing power procurement and infrastructure usage costs in advance, and also commit the company to payment obligations over a relatively long period.

As of the end of September, Anthropic held cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaling $131.845 billion. Including available credit facilities, the company's total liquidity was approximately $146.6 billion.

Compared with on-book funds, the scale of long-term commitments is significantly larger. The $895.4 billion is approximately 6.8 times Anthropic's cash and short-term investments; the approximately $69.8 billion in commitments maturing within the next 12 months is equivalent to approximately 53% of existing cash and short-term investments.

The prospectus also explicitly warns of the operational risks involved. Anthropic's revenue mainly comes from consumption-based business billed by usage, with most revenue not protected by long-term contracts, while computing power and infrastructure spending typically needs to be locked in years in advance. The company may sign long-term agreements based on expected revenue, but actual future revenue may not meet expectations.

If customer revenue growth cannot cover the relevant payments, or if the company cannot continue financing on acceptable terms, Anthropic may be unable to fulfill some contracts. Default on certain commercial agreements could also trigger cross-default provisions in credit agreements and convertible notes, causing debt to accelerate, or even causing suppliers to terminate cooperation.

Cost growth is already reflected in the financial data. In the first three quarters, Anthropic's computing and infrastructure expenses increased 329% year-over-year, an increase of approximately $14.4 billion. Third-quarter related expenses were approximately $9.9 billion, accounting for approximately 58% of quarterly revenue.

From cloud service providers to mining companies, Anthropic searches globally for computing power

According to foreign media reports, at the end of last year, Anthropic's management had already realized that there was significant uncertainty in computing power demand forecasts, and subsequently signed dozens of computing power and infrastructure agreements in quick succession, with partners ranging from large technology companies to data center startups, chip manufacturers, and companies that had previously engaged in cryptocurrency mining.

This round of procurement is no longer limited to purchasing cloud services. Anthropic has begun recruiting data center construction and supply chain experts, directly purchasing server equipment and cooling systems, and helping partners accelerate facility construction. It has also contacted data center developers in multiple states to study grid interconnection, project permits, and the possibility of converting old coal plants and industrial facilities into data centers.

New cloud service providers and former cryptocurrency mining companies have thus entered Anthropic's supply system. Foreign media compiled public information showing that companies such as Fluidstack and Lambda provide computing resources, while companies such as TeraWulf and Hut 8 participate in data center construction.

These partners hold land, power interconnection resources, or ready-made data center facilities. For Anthropic, utilizing existing sites and power resources can reduce the time required to build large campuses from scratch. For some former mining companies, pivoting to AI data centers also provides new business growth space.

But ready-made sites do not mean computing power can be delivered immediately. Power supply, equipment installation, and construction personnel can all slow project progress.

The data center projects Anthropic initially sought were at least around 200MW in scale, and later it began accepting projects of around 50MW, supplementing power supply through battery storage and natural gas generation. The company also considered combining multiple smaller projects to gradually increase computing capacity.

Anthropic has also begun directly participating in the design and procurement of infrastructure projects. The company purchases chips, cooling systems, and other equipment, then hands them to partner operators for installation, in order to shorten the time from project construction to computing power going live.

This model expands the range of resources Anthropic can access, but it also increases the complexity of project management. Different data centers have inconsistent construction cycles, equipment specifications, power conditions, and delivery times. Even if contracts have been signed, actual computing power still needs to go through construction, equipment installation, grid connection, and commissioning before it can be put into use.

John Tough, managing partner of energy investment firm Energize Capital, believes that Anthropic does not control a complete computing power supply pipeline and can only search globally for power and infrastructure resources one by one, then stitch together projects of different scales.

Anthropic refers to this dedicated infrastructure in its prospectus as Anthropic Direct. The company hopes to reduce reliance on more expensive short-term computing power procurement by locking in dedicated capacity over the long term.

Foreign media, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Anthropic expects to have more than 3.5GW of computing capacity in 2026 and plans to double that scale in 2027.

Anthropic's long-term computing power contracts are concentrated in the hands of a few large technology companies and infrastructure suppliers.

According to the prospectus and related disclosures, Anthropic's contract with Google is approximately $121.3 billion, with Amazon approximately $110 billion, and with Microsoft approximately $44.9 billion; the related agreement with SpaceX is valued at up to approximately $120.5 billion, with a term extending to 2036. In addition, the company has related agreements with Fluidstack and Lambda.

The equipment lease commitment related to Broadcom is approximately $161.2 billion, which is also a part of the computing power expenditure structure that cannot be ignored.

In addition, Anthropic plans to purchase an additional approximately $125 billion to $150 billion of Google chips and expects to spend more than $20 billion on AMD chips. These arrangements do not have fixed contract amounts and therefore are not included in the aforementioned $895.4 billion total commitments.

A multi-chip architecture is another arrangement by which Anthropic reduces supply risk. The company states in its prospectus that its computing resources come from AWS Trainium, Google TPU, Nvidia GPU, and AMD GPU, and that it uniformly schedules computing power from different sources, allocating resources according to the price and performance requirements of different tasks. This helps reduce dependence on a single chip supplier, but it also makes Anthropic's relationships with supply chain partners more complex.

Amazon and Google are both important investors in Anthropic and suppliers of cloud services and chip resources. Microsoft likewise provides cloud infrastructure. Broadcom participates in chip and equipment supply. Anthropic pays these companies for computing power while also receiving investment or financing support from some of them.

Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney previously noted that Anthropic's relationships with large cloud service providers have multiple dimensions: it is simultaneously a customer, a competitor, a sales channel, and an investment target.