Anthropic's new IPO filing shows its compute margins worsened in the third quarter. According to the filing, compute took up 58% of revenue, up from 48% in the prior quarter. Revenue reached $17 billion, up from $11.5 billion, while the operating loss grew alongside compute costs.
The company's compute bill rose to $10 billion for the quarter. The filing says this includes "$5.0 billion of compute under short-term commitments, which currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments." The report attributes the rise to demand growing faster than Anthropic could secure capacity.
The filing states that Anthropic expects compute and infrastructure expenses to "increase in absolute dollars and remain our largest operating expense for the foreseeable future." The report notes that Anthropic has paid SpaceX $1.25 billion a month for compute and has signed multi-billion dollar deals with Nscale, Akamai and Volta, which it describes as neoclouds offering more flexible but higher-priced capacity.
The report says Anthropic is pursuing its own compute base under a project called "Anthropic Direct," but it expects neoclouds to remain important in the near term. The report also says the company's compute costs depend on continued data center buildout, which it describes as vulnerable to bond market conditions and local opposition.