The key facts
- Anthropic's revenue for the quarter through September 30 reached $17 billion versus $11.5 billion in the previous quarter
- Compute costs amounted to 58% of revenue versus 48% the previous quarter; the quarterly compute bill was $10 billion
- The company expects infrastructure expenses to remain its largest operating expense category
New data ahead of the IPO
Anthropic on Monday filed an amendment to its S-1 registration statement, adding financial results for an additional quarter — through September 30, whereas the original document, published a week earlier, covered the period only through June 30. The quarter was strong on revenue: $17 billion versus $11.5 billion previously, indicating sustained growth. However, the operating loss grew at the same time, largely due to rising compute costs, TechCrunch reports.
Compute margins are deteriorating
A key metric — the share of compute in revenue — reached 58% in the new quarter, up from 48% the quarter before. A chart in the filing shows revenue per dollar spent on compute: since the start of 2025 it had been rising, peaked at just above 2x last quarter, and then fell to 1.72x. As TechCrunch notes, at the very moment when the company could have attracted IPO investors with improving margins, the metrics are getting worse.
Why the compute bill rose to $10 billion
The compute bill for the quarter reached $10 billion, including, as stated in the filing, '$5.0 billion of compute under short-term commitments, which currently cost significantly more than comparable compute purchased under our multi-year commitments.' In other words, demand grew so fast that Anthropic had to urgently buy additional compute at higher rates.
Dependence on 'neoclouds'
Some of these deals are already publicly known: Anthropic pays SpaceX $1.25 billion per month for compute, and has also signed multi-billion-dollar contracts with Nscale, Akamai and Volta. In industry terminology, these are 'neoclouds' rather than hyperscale providers — smaller companies offering more flexible terms at higher prices. It is precisely such deals, according to TechCrunch, that worsened margins in the third quarter, and there are no signs of abandoning them anytime soon: the filing says that compute and infrastructure expenses 'will increase in absolute dollars and remain our largest operating expense category for the foreseeable future.' The company is also working on its own compute base under the 'Anthropic Direct' project, but at the current pace of demand growth these efforts are not keeping up with needs.
What this means
TechCrunch characterizes the situation as 'champagne problems': while revenue is growing almost 50% per quarter, few investors will worry about high compute costs, and if demand slows, the picture could look noticeably better. At the same time, the article draws attention to a vulnerability: the labs depend on trillion-dollar infrastructure construction, and a slowdown of that process — due to bond market wariness or intensifying local opposition — would make the compute situation significantly harder. For now, the publication concludes, the future of Anthropic and other labs will depend on the price of compute.
