Anthropic’s $80 Billion Loss Is Really a Story About Compute

Anthropic lost $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with $13 billion during the same period a year earlier, according to a draft document prepared for its stock market debut. That is a huge number, but most of it does not mean Anthropic actually spent that money. About $72 billion is an accounting loss. It comes from an increase in the estimated value of bonds that can later be turned into Anthropic shares. As Anthropic becomes more valuable, those bonds become more valuable too. So much of the reported loss comes from the company's rising value.

Something similar happened last year. Anthropic reported a net loss of about $42 billion in 2025. That included a $34 billion accounting charge that did not involve spending cash. Its loss from running the business was about $8.1 billion, while its revenue, or money earned from customers, was $4.6 billion. The loss from running the business is the more important number to watch. It is strongly affected by how much Anthropic pays for computing power.

Growth that most companies never experience

Anthropic's revenue has grown incredibly fast. Reports say the company earned $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with $1.1 billion in the same period a year earlier. In the third quarter, revenue grew 45% from the previous quarter to $16.8 billion. That followed second-quarter revenue of $11.6 billion, which was more than twice the amount earned in the first quarter.

But that 45% growth also raises concerns. Revenue is still growing, but the pace of growth from one quarter to the next is slowing. Investors have noticed. People who attended Anthropic's investor day are now talking about a company value of around $1.5 trillion. During the summer, they had expected a value closer to $2 trillion. The new estimate is still much higher than Anthropic's private valuation of $965 billion in May. But it is not as high as investors had previously expected.

The high cost of not having enough computing power

The company's spending helps explain why investors are becoming more careful. Anthropic has agreed to spend at least $518 billion on cloud services, computing power and infrastructure over ten years. About 80% of those agreements cannot be cancelled. The Wall Street Journal examined the draft document and estimated that the total commitments are even higher, at more than $600 billion. Anthropic is also discussing more deals. The difference between these estimates suggests that the total amount is still changing.

In the first half of 2026, Anthropic spent almost $9 billion on computing and infrastructure, compared with $2.3 billion a year earlier. The draft document also describes a difficult situation with other technology companies. Amazon, Google and Microsoft increasingly see Anthropic as a competitor. Because of this, they have been unwilling to provide all the computing capacity Anthropic needs. This forces Anthropic to get computing power from more expensive sources and from several different providers. As a result, Anthropic's costs increasingly depend on companies that also compete with it.

Why some investors are still hopeful

Investors who believe Anthropic will succeed are betting that its profits will improve as it grows. Bankers and investors are using revenue forecasts for 2028 to estimate the company's value. They expect Anthropic's revenue to grow faster than the cost of providing its services. One major investor argues that profits could improve greatly as Anthropic moves from spending money to train AI models toward spending more on running those models for customers. This investor points to reported gross profit margins of around 85% for inference, which means running AI models to produce answers. If that figure holds up, Anthropic's current spending could help it build a business with the high profit margins often seen in software companies.

Claude Code is a major reason for this hope. It is an AI coding assistant that developers keep paying to use. This helps explain why so much of Anthropic's revenue comes from business customers. Anthropic mainly sells its services to companies and software developers rather than individual consumers. That business focus has made Anthropic look more financially attractive than OpenAI's business model, which is led by ChatGPT.

The risks hidden in the details

There are three important things to look for when Anthropic publishes its final stock market document. First, Anthropic depends heavily on a small number of customers. About 20% of its revenue in the first half of 2026 came from just two customers. Second, its business can be affected by government decisions. A temporary restriction from the US Commerce Department on Anthropic's most advanced AI models helped slow revenue growth in June, although business later recovered. Third, Anthropic has agreed to large contracts that cannot be cancelled. If revenue growth slows or stops, the company cannot easily reduce those costs.

The accounting rules for its convertible bonds also make the company's reported losses a poor way to judge how well the underlying business is doing. Until the audited financial statements are released, investors should not treat estimated annual revenue based on current sales, reported revenue and future profit forecasts as audited financial results.

Why the entire AI industry is paying attention

Anthropic's stock market debut matters to more than just Anthropic. If investors respond badly, it could hurt confidence in the wider AI market, especially because OpenAI is expected to go public next. OpenAI's chief financial officer has said the company plans to enter the stock market next year. OpenAI's own forecasts show that it expects to spend about $278 billion in cash through 2030. Advisers have also warned that large changes in technology stock prices and the performance of SpaceX shares after its stock market debut could make ordinary investors less interested in buying shares.

Written by:

Chloe Maluleke

Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group

Russia & Middle East Specialist

The views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of Independent Media or IOL.