Anthropic struggles to secure enough cloud capacity, leaked filing says
TechCrunch, citing The Wall Street Journal, reports that the Claude maker says AWS, Google and Microsoft increasingly see it as a competitor.
Anthropic is having trouble getting enough cloud computing capacity from AWS, Google and Microsoft, according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch, citing The Wall Street Journal, said the details come from an S-1 filing that was leaked to the Journal. According to the report, the three cloud providers increasingly see the company behind Claude as a competitor rather than a customer.
TechCrunch reported that the filing adds detail to figures Reuters and the Financial Times reported in late September. Those figures included Anthropic's estimate that it could spend more than $750 billion on cloud contracts. Some of those deals are still being negotiated.
Even that may not be enough capacity, according to TechCrunch. The company is leasing its own data centers and working with third-party data center operators. But the filing says those operators have a "limited operating history," and Anthropic is concerned that this could make them less reliable than the large cloud providers.
The filing also sets out the company's finances. Citing the Journal, TechCrunch reported that Anthropic had a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of the year, on revenue of $16.3 billion. Two customers made up about a fifth of sales in that period.
The capacity problem matters because computing power is central to what Anthropic sells, and the companies it relies on for that power are also its competitors. The filing shows a business spending heavily to grow while relying on a small number of large customers for a big share of its revenue.
TechCrunch also reported that the filing builds on earlier disclosures about catastrophic risk. It warns that Anthropic could be held liable for damage caused by harmful AI behavior, and that the bill could be larger than its insurance covers.
Last week, according to TechCrunch, Anthropic told prospective investors that its third-quarter revenue had reached $16.8 billion, up 45% from the previous quarter. TechCrunch said the company is reportedly aiming for an initial public offering in November.
Much is still unclear. The report does not say which cloud contracts are still under negotiation or how much of the estimated spending is already committed. It does not name the two largest customers or the third-party data center operators. It also does not say how large any liability for harmful AI behavior might be, or how much insurance the company has.
This story is based on a single report. TechCrunch said Anthropic did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
