Anthropic signs $3.4bn deal for 1.7GW of gas generators

Anthropic agreed to pay about $3.4 billion to OnePWR Solutions for Caterpillar-made gas generators with 1.7 gigawatts of capacity, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The San Antonio, Texas supplier signed the deal in late September, and the purchase includes engineering and construction capability needed to install the equipment, according to the report.

Anthropic did not acquire OnePWR itself, and no OnePWR employees moved to the AI lab, the FT said, citing a person familiar with the matter. OnePWR had placed the Caterpillar orders roughly two years earlier but lacked financing to complete the purchase; Anthropic took over those orders instead of continuing as OnePWR's power customer. The generators are expected to be delivered within two years, and OnePWR will provide installation assistance covering engineering and construction requirements.

Piper Sandler, which advised OnePWR, lists the deal on its website as a $3.4 billion sale of OnePWR's "power generation platform" to a frontier AI lab. Business Model Analyst reported that Anthropic first planned to buy electricity from OnePWR under a long-term contract and then bought the equipment after deciding its cash was cheaper than borrowing. Business Model Analyst calculated the price at roughly $2,000 per kilowatt, including installation capability.

In September, Caterpillar's management said gas engines for prime power applications have lead times stretching into the second half of 2028 and into 2029, according to Business Model Analyst. OnePWR had marketed the ability to skip that queue without writing a check, but Anthropic used its cash to take the order.

Business Model Analyst said documents reported by the Financial Times show KBRA gave Anthropic a BB+ rating in June, one notch below investment grade. In Apollo-led chip financing, junior debt tied to Anthropic's own credit priced at about 8.5%, while the senior portion guaranteed by Broadcom priced at 5.75%. Anthropic's cash and short-term investments totaled $131.7 billion on June 30 and produced $762 million of interest income in the second quarter, Business Model Analyst reported. The company held about $131.9 billion in cash and short-term investments as of September 30, and the amended filing showed $69.8 billion of commitments due in the following 12 months, according to Business Model Analyst.

The Financial Times described the deal as the largest known single purchase of power-generation equipment by a frontier AI lab, according to DatacenterDynamics. Anthropic has also disclosed $895.4 billion in cloud and data center commitments through 2045, DatacenterDynamics reported. In September, Reuters reported that Anthropic projects more than $500 billion in spending on AI infrastructure over the next decade. Anthropic's prospectus lists cloud commitments of $121.3 billion to Google, $120.5 billion to SpaceX, $110 billion to Amazon and $44.9 billion to Microsoft, according to DatacenterDynamics.

Business Model Analyst calculated that the generator purchase equals 5.4 times Anthropic's reported capital spending from January 2024 through June 2026. Capital spending was $15 million in 2024, then $131 million in 2025, and $482 million in the first six months of 2026. Running the generators is a separate task: the deal did not include OnePWR's operating staff, and fuel and price risk move to the owner, Business Model Analyst noted. CNBC stated that neither Anthropic nor OnePWR had replied to requests for comment.