Anthropic
Anthropic reports Q3 operating loss and $895.4 billion compute bill
Anthropic's amended S-1 shows $17.0 billion in Q3 revenue, a $567 million operating loss and about $895.4 billion in compute commitments.
Anthropic’s amended IPO filing discloses about $895.4 billion in purchase commitments and leases, nearly all for compute, and a $567 million operating loss for the third quarter.
The company filed Amendment No. 1 to its Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 2. It applied to list Class A stock on Nasdaq under the symbol “ANT”.
Revenue Grew 1,127% as Compute Costs Rose
Revenue was $17.0 billion for the three months ended Sept. 30, up 1,127% from a year earlier, while compute and infrastructure expenses grew 382%, the filing said.
Short-Term Compute Turned Profit into a Loss
Anthropic swung from operating income of $974 million in the second quarter to an operating loss of $567 million in the third. The filing attributes the change mainly to $5.0 billion of compute bought under short-term commitments, which it says “currently costs significantly more” than compute under multi-year commitments, and $2.0 billion of non-cash charges tied to its donation matching program.
Most compute is contracted under multi-year commitments procured 12 to 18 months ahead, the filing said. The company expects short-term use to keep rising, which it said will compress operating margin.
The nine-month net loss was $104.0 billion, of which $94.3 billion was a non-operating change in the fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs.
Commitments Run to 2045
About $447.5 billion of the $895.4 billion is expected to come due before Dec. 31, 2030, and substantially all the rest falls between 2031 and 2045. About $69.8 billion is due in the 12 months after Sept. 30. Yahoo Finance said it is the first total the company has put on its compute bill.
Anthropic had $95.6 billion in cash and $36.3 billion in short-term investments on Sept. 30. Yahoo Finance said the commitments are almost seven times that. It listed Broadcom at about $161 billion in equipment leases, Google at about $121 billion, SpaceX’s AI unit at up to $120.5 billion and Amazon at $110 billion.
Anthropic estimated that 5% to 7% of nine-month revenue came from customers violating its usage policy or commercial terms, and said stepped-up enforcement may reduce future revenue and growth.
Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners told Yahoo Finance the profits would not last and called it “a pretty challenging setup for their IPO.”
What It Means for the Labs
We think the filing makes a lab’s compute bill a dated number that any buyer of the stock can read. The commitments “obligate us to pay for resources regardless of actual utilization,” in the filing’s words, and they run to 2045. Google, Amazon and SpaceX’s AI unit are among the counterparties Yahoo Finance listed, and investors in Alphabet and Amazon were already questioning AI spending in the Oct. 30 selloff. Anthropic can carry that bill only if revenue keeps growing faster than the cost of the compute behind it.