Deepening the partnership! Anthropic commits to investing $200 billion in Google's cloud and chips.

Deepening the partnership! Anthropic commits to investing $200 billion in Google's cloud and chips.

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The massive computing order announced by two companies last month now has a price tag—$200 billion, over five years.

According to The Information's latest report, insiders revealed that Anthropic has committed to spending about $200 billion on Google Cloud over the next five years. This agreement takes effect from 2027 and is the concrete manifestation of the 5 GW server capacity collaboration announced last month by both parties.

Last week, Google disclosed to investors that its cloud business’s "backlog revenue" (the amount of long-term contracts signed by customers) has doubled to over $460 billion. According to estimates, Anthropic’s $200 billion commitment accounts for more than 40% of this total backlog revenue.

In other words, a considerable part of Google Cloud’s future revenue depends on Anthropic.

Two Startups Support Half the Market of the Big Four Cloud Providers

This isn’t just Google’s story.

Adding up the cloud spending commitments from Anthropic and OpenAI, the two companies together account for nearly half of the approximately $2 trillion in "backlog revenue" among Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud.

More specifically:

  • Amazon: Q1 "backlog revenue" rose 49% year-on-year to $364 billion. Of this, OpenAI’s new commitment to AWS in a single quarter reached $100 billion, accounting for over 80% of the increase. In April, Amazon also signed a 10-year, $100 billion server leasing deal with Anthropic.
  • Google: "Backlog revenue" doubled in Q1 to over $460 billion, with the new portion mainly coming from Anthropic’s $200 billion commitment.
  • Oracle: In September last year, it announced a $300 billion cloud computing deal with OpenAI, but its stock price has since dropped 45%—investors worry that the money might not ultimately materialize as scheduled or could be shifted to another cloud provider.

The report directly clarifies this phenomenon with quotes from insiders: This reflects the extent to which the AI boom is still betting on the plans of two cash-burning startups.

Why Google Got the Money

The reason Google Cloud was able to secure such a massive spending commitment from Anthropic is direct: Google Cloud operates most of Anthropic’s external API services (the entrance for developers to call Claude), which forms the core foundation of Anthropic’s business.

This also directly explains Google Cloud’s rapid 63% growth.

Another key factor is chips. The computing power Google provides to Anthropic is mainly based on its self-developed TPUs (dedicated AI chips), rather than renting Nvidia’s expensive GPUs. The report notes that this is more profitable for Google—while Google pays partners like Broadcom partly for chips, overall economics are better than reselling Nvidia chips.

The End of the “Big Three,” Rise of Two Giants

Placed in a broader industry context, this $200 billion commitment signifies a reshaping of the landscape.

Previously, WallstreetCN wrote that Google’s announcement last month to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic and promise 5 GW of computing power marked a fundamental shift in the competitive narrative of the AI industry.

For the past two years, top-tier AI competition was depicted as a tripartite struggle between OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic—the “Big Three.” Now, Google’s heavy investment in Anthropic has essentially aligned Google with Anthropic—turning the competitive landscape into a two-giant showdown between the Anthropic camp and OpenAI.

Over the past half year, Anthropic has secured support from Amazon, Google, Nvidia, and Microsoft, with cumulative computing commitments exceeding 11 GW.

Will the $200 Billion Commitment Be Fulfilled?

This is investors’ most pressing concern.

At the end of last year, Anthropic estimated that its server spending this year would exceed $20 billion, about three times last year’s amount. However, this estimate was made in mid-December, when Anthropic’s revenues had not yet seen explosive growth in Q1, so the final number might be even higher.

OpenAI’s numbers are more astonishing: this year’s projected server spending is about $45 billion, last year about $17 billion; by 2029, OpenAI expects server spending in that single year to reach about $180 billion.

Anthropic expects that by 2029, its total payments to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft will reach about $200 billion—this figure is based on its most optimistic estimate from December last year.

Both companies' forecasts are based on one premise: by 2029, revenue will be 20 to 30 times that of 2025.

The report notes some investors are skeptical. Oracle’s experience is a reference: since announcing the $300 billion OpenAI deal, its stock price has dropped 45%.

However, Anthropic and OpenAI have some financing buffers. Both companies plan to go public before 2029, so they can replenish funds through capital markets at that time. Nvidia has also invested billions of dollars in both companies—as the biggest beneficiary of GPU purchases, Nvidia has ample motivation to ensure they continue to buy servers in large quantities. The report likens Nvidia’s role to a “central bank for dozens of chip-buying or leasing companies.”

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