Anthropic is buying $3.4 billion worth of natural gas turbines

Anthropic is spending $3.4 billion on natural gas turbines, TechCrunch reported on November 9. The deal shows how far AI companies now go to secure electricity for their data centers, beyond buying chips and renting compute.

According to a Financial Times report cited by TechCrunch, Anthropic is buying Caterpillar generators that equipment supplier OnePWR originally ordered a couple of years ago. OnePWR could not find financing to complete the purchase. Anthropic had planned to buy the equipment from OnePWR but went directly to Caterpillar instead. The generators can produce up to 1.7 gigawatts, the report says. It is not clear why OnePWR could not raise the money.

The timing explains the urgency. TechCrunch says the backlog for new natural gas turbines stretches into the early 2030s, so an existing order is valuable. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have all announced on site gas plants for data centers. TechCrunch calls Anthropic's purchase a last resort and suggests that keeping the capacity away from a competitor was likely part of the reason.

The purchase sits on top of very large compute commitments. TechCrunch notes that Anthropic disclosed in its S-1 filing that it pays xAI $1.25 billion per month for compute through May 2029, and that the company wrote: "We expect to enter into additional similar services contracts." For makers choosing an AI supplier, these reported commitments are a reminder to consider the infrastructure behind a model API, alongside its features and performance.