Anthropic's compute costs rose faster than its revenue in its most recent quarter, according to a filing update to its S-1 that extended financial disclosures through September 30.
Revenue reached $17 billion, up from $11.5 billion in the previous quarter. The operating loss also grew, largely because compute costs increased. Compute spending reached $10 billion for the quarter, and compute accounted for 58% of revenue, up from 48% the quarter before. A chart in the filing shows revenue per dollar of compute peaking at just over 2x last quarter before falling to 1.72x.
The filing attributes part of the increase to $5.0 billion of compute bought under short-term commitments. The filing says this compute "currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments." Anthropic has also paid SpaceX $1.25 billion a month for compute and has signed multibillion-dollar deals with Nscale, Akamai, and Volta. The source describes these as neoclouds, which are smaller providers that offer more flexible deals at higher rates.
The filing says Anthropic expects compute and infrastructure expenses to rise in absolute dollars and remain its largest operating expense for the foreseeable future. It also