Anthropic invests another 45 billions dollars, accelerating “power hoarding” before its IPO

Anthropic has signed a large-scale computing power procurement agreement with data center operator Nscale, further strengthening its infrastructure layout ahead of its IPO.

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the total value of this deal reaches $45 billion, covering computing power resources at Nscale’s flagship data center in West Virginia. The contract runs for six years and involves approximately 460 megawatts of power supply.

Nscale will use NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin chip to provide services for Anthropic, with the chip expected to be deployed by the end of next year.

This is the latest in a series of major computing power agreements recently signed by Anthropic. In May this year, its valuation reached $965 billion and the market expects it to advance with a record-breaking initial public offering. At the same time, Nscale is also seeking to complete its IPO as early as next month, and securing Anthropic as a heavyweight tenant is crucial for its IPO process.

Meanwhile, Anthropic has launched the Chrome version of Claude for all paid subscribers, adding autonomous browser operation functionality.

In recent months, Anthropic has signed significant contracts with multiple computing power suppliers. Related agreements include:

A $50 billion agreement with emerging cloud computing provider Fluidstack; a $10 billion agreement with infrastructure startup Volta Infra Holdings; and a $45 billion agreement with SpaceX. The current transaction with Nscale further expands its procurement landscape.

The rapid conclusion of these deals reflects Anthropic’s strategic intention to secure massive computing power resources ahead of its IPO.

For AI companies reliant on large-scale computing power to train and operate large language models, securing multi-year supply contracts in advance not only guarantees access to the computational resources needed for business expansion but also sends a strong signal of demand to potential investors.

The subject of the agreement between Nscale and Anthropic is the first of three buildings at Nscale’s Monarch campus in West Virginia.

According to planning documents, once the entire campus is complete its total capacity will be approximately 1.35 gigawatts, including a dedicated on-site power plant. The overall development cost is about $71 billion, with $47 billion allocated solely for AI chips. The servers in the remaining buildings are expected to be powered up starting in 2028.

Sources revealed that the site was originally expected to be leased by Microsoft. In March this year, Microsoft announced it had signed a letter of intent expressing its intention to reserve the data center, and the two parties have previously cooperated in Europe. However, Microsoft exited the West Virginia project earlier this summer, opening up space for Anthropic to move in.

This agreement with Anthropic is of critical significance for London-based Nscale.

As an emerging cloud computing provider focused on AI computing power rentals, Nscale, like CoreWeave, is one of the representative companies in this field. According to previous media reports, Nscale has disclosed to potential investors that it has already locked in about $51 billion in contracted revenue ahead of its IPO.

Nscale’s board of directors is notable, with members including former Meta Platforms executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg. In addition, Nscale is developing a large data center campus in Norway that will be used by Microsoft.

According to planning documents, once the Monarch campus is fully operational, it will directly create about 645 in-house jobs in West Virginia and indirectly generate around 3,600 employment opportunities statewide. During the construction phase, the campus will directly employ 4,375 construction workers.