Anthropic inks US$10 billion computing deal with new cloud startup

ANTHROPIC has struck a US$10 billion deal for computing capacity from a months-old infrastructure startup, according to people familiar with the matter, marking the Claude maker’s latest effort to keep pace with demand for its products. 

The artificial intelligence developer has signed a contract to use a data centre managed by Nvidia-backed cloud startup Volta Infra Holdings, said the people, who requested anonymity as the deal is not public.

Volta said earlier on Tuesday (Aug 4) that it had secured a US$10 billion deal with an unnamed AI lab to be delivered in partnership with Bitdeer Technologies, a Bitcoin miner that operates data centres, using a site in Norway.

The agreement runs for six years, it said.

Volta CEO Ricard Boada declined to name the client. Representatives for Anthropic and Bitdeer declined to comment. 

Anthropic has moved aggressively in recent months to shore up its computing resources as more businesses and consumers turn to its tools to streamline coding and other tasks.

It has inked computing agreements with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Advanced Micro Devices and Akamai Technologies. The AI developer is also in discussions to lease computing power from Meta Platforms’ data centres, Bloomberg News has reported. 

Anthropic raised US$65 billion in a funding round earlier this year to help cover the immense cost of AI development. It’s also considering tapping the public markets for capital with a Wall Street debut as soon as this year. 

The data centre site in Norway offers 133 megawatts of capacity and will be stocked with Nvidia’s newest Vera Rubin chips, Volta said. 

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Founded in January by former executives from Brookfield Asset Management, Volta leases AI capacity and helps clients finance deals for costly chips. The startup announced on Tuesday that it raised US$300 million in venture funding, valuing it at US$2.4 billion. 

Volta’s partner, Bitdeer, is among a growing number of Bitcoin mining companies that are converting some of their data centres from minting the cryptocurrency to supporting AI applications as Bitcoin prices slump.

Bitdeer plans to convert some of its crypto sites in Texas, Tennessee and Washington state, according to a monthly operational update by the company on Jul 21.

Anthropic and rival OpenAI have relied on a mix of large tech firms and newer cloud-computing startups to help build out the data centre capacity they see as necessary for developing better AI systems and supporting wider adoption. 

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has previously said he expects the company to spend “trillions” on physical infrastructure for AI.

The startup is currently planning a new data centre in Georgia that may cost more than US$30 billion. Nvidia is also in discussions to help OpenAI lease a US$500 billion, 10-gigawatt hub that SoftBank Group is overseeing in Ohio, Bloomberg News has reported. 

Over the past year, a number of financing arrangements involving OpenAI and Anthropic have been criticised for being circular in nature.

These deals create an increasingly interconnected web of dependencies between technology suppliers and AI developers that risks magnifying losses if AI demand fails to live up to the lofty expectations. BLOOMBERG