Anthropic has signed a deal to rent approximately $45 billion in AI compute from Nscale, a British AI infrastructure company, according to a source familiar with the agreement who spoke to TechCrunch.
Nscale, founded only in 2024, has already secured partnerships with major players like Microsoft. Under the new agreement, Nscale will supply Anthropic with computing power based on Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips, which represent the latest state-of-the-art chip system.
The Vera Rubin system integrates six different chips working in concert, marking a significant leap in chip design. The compute capacity is expected to begin powering Anthropic's services in late 2027, the source noted.
First reported by Bloomberg, the deal spans six years and will draw computing power from Nscale's flagship data center in West Virginia. This agreement is the latest in a series of aggressive compute partnerships for Anthropic as it seeks to scale up its AI capabilities.
Over the past eight months, Anthropic has dramatically expanded its compute capacity to better compete with rivals, most notably OpenAI. Earlier this month, Anthropic signed a $10 billion deal with AI cloud startup Volta—founded just this past January—securing six years of cloud computing power from a data center in Norway. In July, the company also struck a $5 billion compute-related agreement with AMD.
A few months earlier, in May, Anthropic announced a large computing deal with SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, whose rivalry with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made him an unlikely ally of Anthropic. That arrangement draws capacity from two SpaceX data centers and reportedly provides Anthropic with $1.25 billion worth of computing power each month.
In April, Anthropic significantly expanded its partnership with Amazon, gaining access to an additional 5 gigawatts of compute. That same month, it also deepened its collaboration with Google and Broadcom, adding even more power capacity.
Anthropic is far from alone in this enthusiastic pursuit of AI horsepower. The race to secure as much compute as possible continues among major players, including Google, OpenAI, and Meta, all of whom are following a similar trajectory.
via TechCrunch AI