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Anthropic is still grappling with the economics of compute
TechCrunch • • business
Key Points:
- Anthropic reported strong revenue growth, reaching $17 billion in the latest quarter, up from $11.5 billion previously, but its operating losses increased due to rising compute costs.
- Compute expenses consumed 58% of revenue in the recent quarter, up from 48% the quarter before, indicating worsening margins despite rapid revenue growth.
- The company’s compute costs surged to $10 billion for the quarter, including $5 billion spent on short-term, high-cost compute commitments to meet fast-growing demand.
- Anthropic relies heavily on neocloud providers like SpaceX, Nscale, Akamai, and Volta, which offer flexible but more expensive compute options compared to hyperscalers.
- While Anthropic is investing in building its own compute infrastructure ("Anthropic Direct") to reduce costs, demand growth outpaces these efforts, leaving the company dependent on costly external compute resources and vulnerable to infrastructure buildout risks.
