Anthropic’s compute costs rose to 58% of revenue last quarter, filing shows

Anthropic compute costs grew faster than its revenue last quarter. Compute took 58% of revenue in the third quarter, up from 48%. TechCrunch’s Russell Brandom found the figures in Anthropic’s amended IPO filing.

Revenue rose to $17bn, from $11.6bn the quarter before, as we reported on Monday. But a chart in the filing shows revenue per dollar of compute falling to 1.72x, from just over 2x, TechCrunch reported.

Short-term compute costs more

Anthropic’s compute and infrastructure bill reached $9.9bn in the quarter. Anthropic bought about half of it under short-term commitments, the filing says.

“$5.0 billion of compute under short-term commitments, which currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments.” Anthropic, amended S-1

TechCrunch tied the weaker margins to deals with smaller cloud providers, such as Britain’s Nscale. Anthropic says it can swap the short-term compute for cheaper long-term capacity. It plans to do so as dedicated data centres run on its behalf, under a programme it calls Anthropic Direct, come online, the filing says. TechCrunch called the margin dip more likely a blip than a lasting problem.

Staff costs fell slightly, because some option awards became fully vested, the filing says. Anthropic spent $1.711bn on personnel in the quarter, down from $1.857bn, TechRadar reported from the filing. A year earlier it spent $489m. Stock-based pay made up $1.1bn of the quarter’s total.

Broadcom’s backstop

Suppliers also help pay for Anthropic’s chips. Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Blackstone will fund a new company that buys Broadcom chips and leases them to Anthropic. The deal was announced on 26 October, and deliveries start in 2027. If Anthropic defaults, Broadcom has agreed to absorb losses on the $63bn deal, up to about $43bn once the kit is deployed, Wen Shao reported for Fortune.

Separately, Anthropic can pay rent with up to $42bn in convertible notes to Broadcom. That facility dates from March, and we covered it in October. The notes carry 9% interest and convert into shares at a 10% discount. If Anthropic misses certain revenue targets, that becomes 13% and a 15% discount, the filing shows. Anthropic says the targets sit well below its recent growth.

Anthropic had $146.6bn in cash, short-term investments and available bank credit at the end of September, according to the filing.

“Supplier financing supports construction; ultimately, paying for it requires revenue from end customers.” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Columbia Business School, to Fortune

Other suppliers tie funding to their hardware too. AMD has committed to buy up to $5bn of Anthropic shares, the filing shows. The money comes as its GPUs reach delivery and deployment milestones, the first expected in 2027. Anthropic is preparing one of the largest stock market listings on record.