Anthropic buys $3.4 billion of gas turbines to power its AI computing
AI company Anthropic is spending $3.4 billion on natural gas turbines originally ordered by equipment supplier OnePWR. The purchase shows how acute the power shortage has become for the AI industry.
Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude models, is buying natural gas turbines worth $3.4 billion, according to a Financial Times report cited by TechCrunch. The move is unusual for a company that has generally avoided purchasing physical infrastructure, and it signals how acute the AI industry's power crunch has become.
The turbines are Caterpillar generators that equipment supplier OnePWR originally ordered. Together they can produce up to 1.7 gigawatts of electricity. OnePWR placed the order a couple of years ago but could not find financing to complete the purchase. Anthropic had planned to buy the units from OnePWR, but went directly to the manufacturer, Caterpillar, instead. It is unclear why OnePWR failed to secure financing.
From renting to buying
Anthropic, which plans to go public this year, has historically preferred renting. In its S-1 filing in May, the company disclosed that it pays xAI, a SpaceX subsidiary, $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for access to xAI's computing power. The filing said Anthropic expects to enter into additional similar service contracts.
The market for power may have pushed the company toward buying. The backlog for natural gas turbines stretches into the early 2030s, and queues to connect to the electrical grid can be just as long. TechCrunch assesses that Anthropic probably also wanted to keep the capacity for itself rather than let a competitor take it.
An industry-wide trend
AI companies have been buying more natural gas equipment and supplies in recent years. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have announced plans to build large gas-fired power plants to supply their data centers on site instead of drawing from the public grid. This has given fracking, the drilling method used to extract natural gas from underground rock, a second wind. If the buildout proceeds as planned, U.S. data centers alone could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035.
Relying on natural gas also exposes large cloud and AI operators to price swings. One analyst expects prices could more than triple in some markets by the end of the decade.
