According to a Financial Times report, the AI developer Anthropic has concluded a billion-dollar contract for gas-powered generators for its data centers. The newspaper reported at the weekend. Anthropic reportedly secured high-performance generators from Caterpillar in late September, capable of generating up to 1.7 gigawatts of electricity. The contract volume is $3.4 billion. The counterparty was the Texas-based company OnePWR Solutions, and the agreement also covers engineering and construction work for the installation.
Direct purchase instead of intermediaries
According to the Financial Times, this is the largest known single purchase of power generation equipment by an AI company to date. Anthropic originally intended to act as a customer of OnePWR. OnePWR had already ordered the turbines from Caterpillar two years earlier but, according to the newspaper, could not find financing to complete the purchase. Anthropic then took over the existing Caterpillar orders directly. TechCrunch speculates that Anthropic preferred to secure the capacity itself rather than let a competitor access it. This is the portal's assumption, not a confirmed fact.
Background
Until now, Anthropic had mostly rented energy capacity. According to TechCrunch, the company's IPO filing from May shows it will pay xAI, a subsidiary of SpaceX, $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for the use of computing power. According to the Financial Times, Anthropic's computing capacity commitments through 2045 amount to almost $900 billion.
Assessment
The move suggests AI companies could try to exert more direct control over the energy supply of their infrastructure, since, according to the Financial Times, turbine delivery times now run to years. Whether this becomes a pattern cannot be reliably inferred from the available sources. For German companies and energy planners, the open question is whether this further tightens demand for gas turbines and generators; the sources provide no reliable figures for Germany.
Sources
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