> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.dailyferment.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Anthropic has committed $895 billion to compute. California's 2001 power deals show the catch. - URL: https://www.dailyferment.com/anthropic-895-billion-commitments/ - Published: 2026-11-04T01:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-04T00:59:59.000Z - Description: Anthropic's amended S-1 lists $895.4 billion of compute commitments. The figure to watch is the $69.8 billion due within a year, set against revenue. - Author: Rana Bilal Zafar - Tags: Economy, AI, #reframe When Anthropic filed its S-1 on 26 October 2026, one sentence had blanks where the numbers should be: an "aggregate committed spend of more than $ ". The amended filing on 2 November filled them in. Anthropic has signed purchase commitments and leases worth about $895.4 billion, nearly all for compute and infrastructure, running to 2045\. It isn't borrowing. It's money Anthropic has agreed to pay for chips, data centres and power, much of it whether or not it uses them. About $69.8 billion falls due in the next 12 months, which is roughly what Anthropic now earns in a year. ## What exactly did Anthropic disclose? The numbers are in the [amended S-1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2130357/000162828026068676/anthropicpbc-sx1ax1.htm?ref=dailyferment.com). Of the $895.4 billion, about $447.5 billion is "expected to be incurred before December 31, 2030" and "substantially all of the remainder" between 2031 and 2045\. Revenue for the three months to 30 September was $17.0 billion. For the nine months it was $33.2 billion, and compute and infrastructure cost $18.8 billion of that. **$895.4B**committed spend, mostly compute, to 2045 **$69.8B**due in the 12 months after 30 Sep 2026 **$68.0B**Q3 revenue of $17.0B, times four **$447.5B**expected before the end of 2030 Source: Anthropic, PBC, Form S-1/A, filed 2 Nov 2026\. The $68.0B run rate is my multiplication, not a figure Anthropic gives. The filing is plain about what kind of money this is. The agreements carry "minimum purchase commitments, take-or-pay provisions, and other terms that obligate us to pay for resources regardless of actual utilization." Some power and data centre deals run "20 years with annual escalators" and "uncapped fuel cost pass-throughs". The Broadcom equipment leases alone come to about $161.2 billion in rent, and they can't be cancelled by Anthropic. ## My first reaction: that's a debt, and it's huge That was my first read, and the size makes it easy. $895.4 billion is more than 13 years of revenue at the Q3 rate. Then I read the part I'd skipped, and the picture got more interesting than "too big". In Q3, Anthropic went from an operating profit of $974 million in the second quarter to an operating loss of $567 million. The filing says this was "primarily driven by $5.0 billion of compute under short-term commitments, which currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments" (plus $2.0 billion of non-cash charges for a donation matching programme). Guess first: Anthropic made an operating profit of $974 million in the second quarter of 2026\. What did it make in the third? **A $567 million operating loss.** The filing puts it mainly down to $5.0 billion of compute bought on short-term commitments, which "currently costs significantly more" than its multi-year compute, plus $2.0 billion of non-cash donation matching charges. So the short-term compute is the expensive compute. Being short of long contracts cost Anthropic real money last quarter. That's the argument for signing more of them. And that's exactly the trap the next section is about. ## When has this happened before? California, 2001\. During the energy crisis, the state's Department of Water Resources bought power on behalf of the investor-owned utilities. According to the [State Auditor's December 2001 report](https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/summary/2001-009?ref=dailyferment.com), it signed 57 long-term contracts worth an estimated $42.6 billion over ten years, about 40 of them, worth $35.9 billion, "in just 30 days". Locking in long contracts looked like the safe answer at the time. ![Two tall electricity transmission towers on a grassy hill](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/b7/d7b77195-48c5-45ab-8688-51750879d1d6/content/images/2026/11/df94-split-power-lines.jpg) Illustrative. Photo by [Spencer DeMera](https://unsplash.com/photos/two-tall-power-lines-stand-on-a-grassy-hill-66X6AKeyOEE?ref=dailyferment.com) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/two-tall-power-lines-stand-on-a-grassy-hill-66X6AKeyOEE?ref=dailyferment.com) By the end of that year the auditor found the department "has procured more power than consumers in Southern California need" for parts of 2003 to 2005, and still not enough for peak demand. [NGI's report on the audit](https://www.naturalgasintel.com/ca-bureau-of-state-audits-finds-dwr-purchased-too-much-power/?ref=dailyferment.com) adds that many contracts were payable whether or not the power was needed. The contracts gave the state no way out when costs were "significantly greater than market prices." One seller did agree to cut its price. In December 2001, as [Power Engineering reported](https://www.power-eng.com/operations-maintenance/bpa-agrees-to-price-cut-on-california-contract/?ref=dailyferment.com), the Bonneville Power Administration cut the average price on its contract from $55 to $29 per megawatt hour. The cross: California's power contracts and Anthropic's compute #### California DWR, 2001 - *Size:* 57 contracts, about $42.6B over ten years - *Why sign long:* an energy crisis; long contracts looked safe - *Can it walk away:* no exit when costs are "significantly greater than market prices" - *Paid if unused:* many contracts, yes - *What came next:* auditor found more power than needed for 2003 to 2005; BPA cut its price from $55 to $29 per MWh #### Anthropic, 2026 - *Size:* about $895.4B, mostly through 2045 - *Why sign long:* short-term compute "costs significantly more" than multi-year - *Can it walk away:* Broadcom leases non-cancelable; take-or-pay terms elsewhere - *Paid if unused:* "regardless of actual utilization" - *What comes next:* unknown; $69.8B due within a year Sources: California State Auditor, Report 2001-009, Dec 2001; NGI, 24 Dec 2001; Power Engineering, 14 Dec 2001; Anthropic S-1/A, 2 Nov 2026. ## So is Anthropic California? Not yet, and maybe not at all. California's buyer was a state agency stepping in during a crisis. Anthropic resells its compute to customers who are still growing fast: revenue grew 1,127% year on year in Q3 while compute costs grew 382%. That gap is the case for the commitments. The mismatch the filing itself names is on the other side of the ledger. "Our revenue is primarily consumption-based, and much of it is not subject to long-term contractual commitments, while our compute and infrastructure commitments generally extend over multiple years." Customers pay as they go. Anthropic pays on a schedule. I made a similar point about [how Anthropic's revenue leans on two customers and two clouds](https://www.dailyferment.com/anthropic-ipo-two-customers-revenue-concentration/), and the way [OpenAI and Anthropic count revenue](https://www.dailyferment.com/openai-anthropic-revenue-gross-vs-net-box-office/) matters here too. A long contract only looks cheap if the thing you're buying doesn't get cheaper faster than you expected. The filing itself credits "underlying compute efficiency improvements" in the same quarter, and the more of those pile up, the higher a price locked in today can look later. So the number I'd watch isn't the $895.4 billion. It's the $69.8 billion due within a year against a Q3 revenue rate of about $68.0 billion a year (my multiplication, not Anthropic's). If revenue keeps outrunning that line, the long contracts are the cheap insurance they were meant to be. If the line catches up with revenue, they start to look like California's. This isn't advice on the IPO, just how I'd read the filing. ![Chart: Anthropic's Q3 2026 revenue at an annual rate of $68.0 billion beside $69.8 billion of commitments due in the next 12 months, and a bar splitting $895.4 billion of total commitments into $447.5 billion before 2031 and about $447.9 billion from 2031 to 2045](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/b7/d7b77195-48c5-45ab-8688-51750879d1d6/content/images/2026/11/df94-bill-vs-revenue.png) Card by Daily Ferment. Source: Anthropic S-1/A, 2 Nov 2026\. The annual rate is Q3 revenue times four, my arithmetic. ## How sure am I? Established Every Anthropic figure and quote, from the amended S-1 filed 2 Nov 2026; the California audit findings and the BPA price cut. Inferred That next year's $69.8B against the revenue run rate is the useful comparison, and that the Q3 loss shows the price of being short on long contracts. Still a guess Whether compute gets cheap enough by 2028 to 2030 to make today's long contracts look like California's. The claim, in one sentence A long compute commitment is a bet that today's locked price will still look cheap when the bill comes, so the number to watch in Anthropic's filing is not the $895.4 billion total but the $69.8 billion due in a year, set against revenue customers can stop spending in any month. What I don't know: the cancellation terms on most of the $895.4 billion, the prices locked in, and how much revenue sits under non-cancelable customer minimums. The filing says "a growing number" of enterprise customers sign those and gives no total I could find. If a later filing shows large customer minimums matching the commitments, my worry shrinks a lot. **More on Daily Ferment:** [Two customers are a quarter of Anthropic. Two clouds are half.](https://www.dailyferment.com/anthropic-ipo-two-customers-revenue-concentration/) and [Microsoft's 5% monthly billing fee is a loan at about 11%](https://www.dailyferment.com/microsoft-monthly-billing-uplift-interest-rate/) ## Sources - Anthropic, PBC, [Form S-1/A, Amendment No. 1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2130357/000162828026068676/anthropicpbc-sx1ax1.htm?ref=dailyferment.com), SEC, filed 2 Nov 2026. - Anthropic, PBC, [Form S-1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2130357/000162828026067168/anthropicpbc-sx1.htm?ref=dailyferment.com), SEC, filed 26 Oct 2026. - California State Auditor, [Report 2001-009 summary, California Energy Markets](https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/summary/2001-009?ref=dailyferment.com), December 2001. - [CA Bureau of State Audits Finds DWR Purchased Too Much Power](https://www.naturalgasintel.com/ca-bureau-of-state-audits-finds-dwr-purchased-too-much-power/?ref=dailyferment.com), NGI, 24 Dec 2001. - [BPA agrees to price cut on California contract](https://www.power-eng.com/operations-maintenance/bpa-agrees-to-price-cut-on-california-contract/?ref=dailyferment.com), Power Engineering, 14 Dec 2001.