Anthropic's prospectus discloses $895.4 billion in compute commitments, returning to an operating loss in the third quarter

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

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

The document 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 needs of enterprise customers, the company has not only signed long-term agreements with cloud service providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, but also begun directly procuring chips, participating in data center construction, and seeking power and computer room resources from former cryptocurrency mining companies and new cloud service providers.

01

Revenue grows 12-fold, operating loss reappears

The updated prospectus shows that Anthropic's third-quarter revenue was $16.96 billion, higher than the $11.56 billion in the second quarter and far higher than 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 about 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 in the quarter, while 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 mainly attributed the swing to negative operating profit to short-term computing power procurement. Because customer demand growth exceeded the computing power supply previously locked in, Anthropic had to temporarily purchase additional computing resources on the 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%, lower than 19% in the second quarter. The decline in adjusted margin reflects that during 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 for new model versions and contract discounts, with an impact of approximately $600 million.

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

02

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

The prospectus disclosed that as of the end of September, Anthropic's cumulative expenditure commitments formed through procurement commitments and leasing 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 due within the next 12 months amount to approximately $69.8 billion.

This amount does not equal interest-bearing debt that has already been formed, nor does it mean that Anthropic needs to pay all of it immediately. It includes different types of procurement contracts, equipment leases, and data center-related agreements, with payment times spread over many years in the future. However, some contracts are strongly binding, and even if actual usage is lower than expected, the company may still need to bear corresponding payment obligations.

In terms of contract composition, lease commitments that have not yet commenced amount to approximately $321.4 billion, and fixed minimum procurement commitments amount to approximately $265.6 billion. These long-term arrangements lock in future computing power procurement and infrastructure use costs in advance, and also leave the company with payment obligations for 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 the funds on the books, 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 of commitments due in the next 12 months is equivalent to approximately 53% of existing cash and short-term investments.

The prospectus also clearly warns of the operational risks involved. Anthropic's revenue mainly comes from usage-based consumption business, most of which has no long-term contract protection, while computing power and infrastructure expenditures usually need 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. Defaults on certain commercial agreements may also trigger cross-default clauses in credit agreements and convertible notes, causing debt to become due early and 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, rising by about $14.4 billion. In the third quarter, related expenses were about $9.9 billion, accounting for about 58% of revenue that quarter.

03

From cloud service providers to mining companies, Anthropic is searching the world 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 its 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 been engaged in cryptocurrency mining.

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

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

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

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

Anthropic initially sought data center projects of at least about 200MW, and later began accepting projects of about 50MW, supplementing power supply through battery storage and natural gas generation. The company is also considering combining multiple small projects to gradually increase computing capacity.

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

This model expands the range of resources Anthropic can access, but it also increases the complexity of project management. The construction cycles, equipment specifications, power conditions, and delivery times of different data centers are not consistent. Even if contracts have been signed, actual computing power still must 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 have a complete computing power supply pipeline and can only search globally for power and infrastructure resources one by one, then piece together projects of different sizes.

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

Citing people familiar with the matter, foreign media 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 small number of large technology companies and infrastructure suppliers.

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

Broadcom-related equipment lease commitments of about $161.2 billion are also a part of this computing power expenditure structure that cannot be ignored.

In addition, Anthropic plans to purchase an additional $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 total commitment of $895.4 billion.

A multi-chip architecture is another arrangement by which Anthropic reduces supply risk. The company said in its prospectus that its computing power 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 also provides cloud infrastructure. Broadcom, meanwhile, 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 pointed out that Anthropic's relationships with large cloud service providers have multiple dimensions: it is both a customer and a competitor, sales channel, and investment target.

This article comes from the WeChat public account "Tencent Technology," author: Su Yang, editor: Xu Qingyang, published by 36Kr with authorization.