Anthropic's compute costs reach 58% of revenue in amended IPO filing

The amended filing, submitted on Monday 2 November, extended Anthropic's disclosed results to 30 September. Third-quarter revenue came in at roughly $17 billion.

For anyone buying into the IPO, the numbers point one way: Anthropic is growing fast and spending a bigger slice of every dollar on the compute that runs its models. Compute took 58% of revenue in the September quarter, up from 48% in the three months before, according to TechCrunch's reading of the filing on 3 November. That matters beyond Anthropic. Nscale, the cloud provider building its capacity, is heading for its own listing, and Nvidia is discussing guarantees for billions of dollars of Nscale debt. Neither the size of any guarantee nor the fate of a second 460MW facility at Nscale's Monarch campus has been disclosed.

Anthropic's compute share climbs in the IPO filing

Revenue growth is still steep, but it is slowing. Third-quarter revenue rose about 47% from the prior quarter, down from 144% growth in the second quarter. The Register reported on 2 November that the revised filing warns the 12x revenue growth is unlikely to continue.

The compute bill itself was $10 billion for the quarter. Of that, $5.0 billion came under short-term commitments, which the filing says currently cost significantly more than comparable compute procured under multi-year deals. Demand outran supply, so Anthropic paid up.

Anthropic's total purchase commitments and lease agreements reached about $895.4 billion, substantially all of it related to compute and infrastructure. Compute and infrastructure expenses rose by $14.4 billion in the nine months to 30 September, up 329% from the same stretch last year. Revenue for those nine months was $33.24 billion, up roughly 1,200%. The net loss was $104 billion, most of it from a change in the fair value of convertible notes and derivative liabilities.

The Nscale talks and Nvidia's possible guarantee

InvestingLive reported that Nvidia is in talks to guarantee billions of dollars of Nscale debt. The debt would fund a 460MW data centre for Anthropic, tied to a $45 billion compute deal, according to the report, which cited The Information. Nothing has been signed. The terms could change, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The capacity sits at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia and would run on Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips. Anthropic took over the site after Microsoft withdrew from a preliminary letter of intent it signed in March. Crypto Briefing reported that Anthropic signed a six-year deal worth about $45 billion with Nscale in August 2026 covering 460MW. The two companies discussed a second 460MW building in October, and a second facility would double Anthropic's footprint at Monarch.

The accounts of the first agreement differ. InvestingLive described Anthropic as in late-stage talks to buy about $45 billion of capacity, while Crypto Briefing described a signed six-year contract. Filings tied to Nscale's planned listing show existing Anthropic infrastructure commitments close to $45 billion. Anthropic's own IPO filing lists about $44.6 billion in compute commitments with Nscale.

Nscale's growth has been abrupt. Its total contracted value exceeded $103 billion in October 2026, against $100 million two and a half years earlier.

Why a supplier guarantee matters

If the guarantee is agreed, Nvidia would hold three roles in the same deal chain: chip supplier, equity investor in Nscale and backer of its debt. Nscale filed for a US IPO in September targeting a valuation of about $30 billion. Nvidia is already an investor. The company recently closed a pre-IPO round of about $3.4 billion led by Third Point.

Critics have made this argument before. In September, Anthropic signed a $35 billion compute deal with Lambda, another Nvidia-backed cloud provider, and critics argued Nvidia was effectively underwriting demand for its own chips. Nvidia's finance chief has said the company sees those arrangements differently.

Supporters say a guarantee from a highly rated supplier could narrow the spreads smaller data centre developers pay to borrow. That eases a funding strain markets have worried about.

Nscale's planned IPO could benefit from the added backing, though investors are likely to ask how much of its revenue depends on financing from its own supplier.

Margins and the neocloud bill

Anthropic's compute shopping list runs well beyond Nscale. TechCrunch reported that the company has been paying SpaceX $1.25 billion a month for compute, alongside multibillion-dollar deals with Nscale, Akamai and Volta.

The filing tracks revenue per dollar spent on compute. That figure grew steadily from the start of 2025, peaked at just over 2x this past quarter, then fell back to 1.72x. The operating loss grew in the quarter, largely on compute costs. Margins got worse at the moment Anthropic could have won IPO investors by showing them improving.

The gross margin comparison is stark. Anthropic reported 85.4% in the first half of 2026, against 26.4% for Z.ai and 17.9% for MiniMax, according to SCMP's comparison of the companies' filings.

Anthropic is also trying to lower its compute costs by building its own capacity under a project it calls Anthropic Direct. Demand is growing too fast for that to keep pace. The filing says the company expects compute and infrastructure expenses to increase in absolute dollars and remain its largest operating expense for the foreseeable future.

What happens next

Two listings will put the financing structure in front of public investors: Nscale's planned IPO and Anthropic's roadshow. CNBC reported that the amended S-1 brings Anthropic one step closer to a potentially historic IPO. Both are still pending.

The open items are the ones that matter. The second 460MW facility at Monarch has not been confirmed, and the Nvidia guarantee talks remain unsigned.