According to Woofun AI, Anthropic PBC disclosed in its draft IPO prospectus that, despite having reserved over $600 billion in long-term compute resources, the company still faces the harsh reality of being unable to secure all the compute power it desires.
This contradiction reveals a core pain point in today’s AI infrastructure sector: even with massive capital commitments, computing power supply remains structurally insufficient. The prospectus details payment obligations requiring Anthropic to pay $111 billion to Alphabet (GOOGL.US, GOOG.US), $110 billion to Amazon (AMZN.US), and $31 billion to Microsoft (MSFT.US), regardless of whether the full contracted computing capacity is utilized. These major cloud providers are only part of the relevant stakeholders.
Under agreements extending through 2033 and 2034, Anthropic may also pay up to $86 billion to suppliers Nscale and Lambda for access to computing power powered by NVIDIA (NVDA.US) chips. Due to a chip leasing agreement between Google (GOOGL.US) and Broadcom (AVGO.US), Anthropic is liable for over $160 billion in Google chip leasing costs, potentially pushing its total long-term infrastructure spending beyond $600 billion.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the massive investment is driven by explosive revenue growth and uncertainty in acquiring computing power. In the six months ended June 30, Anthropic's revenue reached $16.3 billion, compared to just $1.1 billion in the same period last year;
Meanwhile, its spending on computing power and infrastructure rose to nearly $9 billion, up from $2.3 billion in the first half of 2025. The total spending over these six months has already exceeded Anthropic’s full-year 2025 expenditure of $7.3 billion on computing power and infrastructure.
However, the risk disclosure section of the prospectus notes that access to computing resources remains uncertain, as an increasing number of major cloud service providers view Anthropic as a competitor and are reluctant to provide substantial computing resources. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are all selling competing AI models or supporting competing laboratories, and the companies that have received the most funding from Anthropic are also restricting its access to computing power.
In addition, Anthropic is exploring further agreements that could increase its total investment by an additional $150 billion, bringing the total amount to approximately $750 billion. On paper, the company’s losses are substantial—of its $80.7 billion loss in the first half of the year, $72 billion stemmed from accounting charges related to changes in the value of convertible notes and other financial instruments issued to raise capital.
The timing of this S-1 draft prospectus is notable, as the same day saw Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX.US) release its quarterly report, which drew most of the attention due to its superintelligence segment generating $7.6 billion in revenue through cloud services and compute infrastructure deployment.
However, for the broader AI industry, Anthropic’s disclosure may be even more significant—a customer committed to investing $600 billion and still seeking additional resources implies massive demand for chips, data centers, and cloud computing over the coming years, benefiting Google, Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Broadcom. Investors will soon gain deeper insights as Anthropic prepares for a potentially groundbreaking initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company at up to $2 trillion. Yet, recent reports indicate that, following the disclosure of its third-quarter results, some existing and potential investors have lowered their valuation expectations to the $1.5 trillion range. The strong demand for AI is the root of this urgency, as the compute arms race has evolved from a mere technological competition into a deep integration of capital and supply chains.
This series of data indicates a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape of the artificial intelligence industry. Anthropic’s challenges are not isolated but rather a microcosm of the entire industry struggling under compute constraints. When cloud giants are both suppliers and competitors, the political economy of compute allocation becomes increasingly complex. Anthropic has attempted to mitigate risk by securing long-term contracts, but evolving market dynamics make this strategy uncertain. As an IPO approaches, the market will reassess the company’s true value and potential risks—not only determining Anthropic’s fate but also shaping capital flows and technological trajectories across the entire AI ecosystem. Over the coming years, the scarcity of compute resources will continue to drive up industry costs, while potentially giving rise to new business models and technological breakthroughs.