Anthropic agrees to pay $3.4 billion for gas-fired data center generators, FT reports

Anthropic has agreed to pay about $3.4 billion for gas-fired generators to power data centers, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, Nov. 8, according to a Reuters account carried by CNBC. The FT described the deal as the largest known single purchase of power-generation equipment by an AI lab, Bloomberg reported, citing the newspaper.

Anthropic bought commitments for 1.7 gigawatts of heavy-duty generators in late September from OnePWR Solutions, an equipment supplier based in San Antonio, Texas, the FT reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. OnePWR had ordered the generators from Caterpillar about two years ago but needed financing to complete the purchase, the FT said, according to The Next Web. Anthropic had initially planned to buy power from OnePWR before instead taking over its Caterpillar generator orders, Bloomberg said, citing the FT.

Anthropic did not acquire OnePWR, and none of the supplier’s employees moved to Anthropic, but the deal included the engineering and construction capabilities needed to install the generators, according to the FT. The reports did not say where the generators will be used.

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and Anthropic and OnePWR did not respond to its requests for comment. Both companies declined to comment to the FT, The Next Web reported.

Anthropic’s amended S-1 registration statement, filed Monday, Nov. 2, does not name OnePWR or Caterpillar. It says “certain of our planned data center facilities rely on dedicated on-site natural gas-fired generation,” which exposes the company to fuel price volatility and supply disruptions, and that its arrangements generally provide for fuel and related costs to be borne by Anthropic on a pass-through basis without cost caps. The filing also says equipment such as turbines and generators has faced extended delivery timelines, price increases and allocation constraints as demand from data center operators has grown.

The same filing reports purchase commitments and lease agreements with aggregate committed spend of about $895.4 billion, substantially all of it related to compute and infrastructure. Reuters reported in September that Anthropic expects to spend more than $500 billion over the next 10 years building AI infrastructure, CNBC noted.

The FT report arrives as Anthropic prepares for its initial public offering, while some potential investors have questioned its expected valuation.

Anthropic agrees to pay $3.4 billion for gas-fired data center generators, FT reports

Sources