Anthropic Expects 3.5 GW of Compute by Year-End, NYT Reports, as IPO Filing Shows $895.4 Billion in Commitments

Anthropic expects to have more than 3.5 gigawatts of computing capacity online by the end of 2026 and aims to double that in 2027, the New York Times reported Tuesday, Nov. 3, citing people familiar with the company's plans.

That is roughly the output of three large nuclear reactors. The Times said the capacity would need enough electricity to power every home in Chicago.

The Times report also says the numbers have come down. The year-end figure is about 30% below the roughly 5 GW Anthropic gave investors in September, and the 2027 target of about 7 GW compares with an earlier estimate near 10 GW. Earlier projections circulating before the report put 2027 at 9.5 to 10 GW.

The commitments behind the buildout

In an amended S-1 filed with the SEC on Nov. 2, Anthropic disclosed $895.4 billion in non-cancelable purchase and lease commitments as of Sept. 30. The obligations cover data centers, chips and computing power and run through 2045.

Nearly $70 billion of that is expected to take effect over the next 12 months.

The named counterparties are large:

• Google: $121.3 billion
• SpaceX: $120.5 billion
• Amazon: $110 billion
• Microsoft: $44.9 billion

Anthropic is also buying capacity from neocloud providers Fluidstack, Lambda and Nscale. Separate arrangements reportedly include about 3.5 GW of Google and Broadcom TPU capacity starting in 2027 and up to 5 GW of Amazon's Trainium chips. Crypto Briefing reported that a further $150 billion to $175 billion in arrangements sits on top of the filed total. That figure is an estimate.

The company is also doing more of the work itself. It is hiring construction and supply-chain specialists and buying equipment such as data-center cooling systems. It is sourcing power and facilities from former cryptocurrency miners as well.

Revenue is surging, and so are costs

Third-quarter revenue was $16.96 billion, up from $11.56 billion in the second quarter and about $1.38 billion a year earlier. Nine-month revenue reached $33.242 billion, against $2.545 billion for the same period of 2025.

Costs rose faster than sales. Operating expenses climbed to $17.5 billion from $10.6 billion in the second quarter. Compute and infrastructure costs reached about $9.9 billion, up from roughly $5.6 billion.

That flipped a $974 million operating profit in the second quarter into a $567 million operating loss in the third. Crypto Briefing separately reported a net loss of $23.3 billion for the quarter.

Anthropic's own explanation is in the filing. It said customer demand outran the capacity it had locked in under multi-year agreements, so it bought roughly $5 billion of additional compute on the market at temporarily higher prices. A non-cash charge of about $2 billion for an employee donation-matching program also hit the quarter.

By that account, the loss reflects a company scrambling to serve demand it did not fully plan for, not a business that cannot sell what it makes. The filing's adjusted operating margin, which excludes equity-based compensation and the donation-matching expense, is a separate and more flattering measure.

Targets are not delivered capacity

The cut to the 2026 and 2027 targets is a reminder that gigawatts on a slide are not gigawatts in service. Newsquawk's market analysis noted that reports of this kind describe intent. It pointed to past slippage between announced and delivered capacity, driven by power availability and grid-connection queues rather than money.

Anthropic is trying to shorten that gap by seeking smaller data-center sites alongside its mega-deals, since small sites can often come online faster than sprawling campuses. It is also spreading its bets across chips, using Google's TPUs and Amazon's Trainium rather than relying only on Nvidia GPUs.

The risk in the filing's own numbers is plain. The obligations are non-cancelable, so they come due whether or not demand grows as planned. The roughly $70 billion due over the next 12 months compares with third-quarter revenue of $16.96 billion, or about $68 billion annualized.

Whether power and grid connections arrive on schedule to hit 3.5 GW by Dec. 31 is the next test. The year-end number is still a target, not a delivered figure.