Anthropic grows more reliant on Google, Amazon, Microsoft as cloud partnerships drive revenue, costs | Business News

Anthropic PBC is depending more and more on Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to sell its artificial intelligence technology to customers. This is happening even though these three companies compete with Anthropic, invest in it and supply the computing power it needs.

Customers can buy access to Anthropic’s Claude AI models through their existing cloud accounts with Amazon, Google and Microsoft. These cloud companies charge customers, keep a fee and give the remaining money to Anthropic. According to Anthropic’s initial public offering (IPO) filing, published Monday, this business made up 48% of the company’s revenue in the first half of 2026, compared with 11% in 2023.

This arrangement has helped Anthropic grow quickly. The company made $11.6 billion in sales in the second quarter and reported an operating profit of $974 million.

But Anthropic also pays large fees to the three cloud companies. Its costs for sales, marketing and partnerships rose to $3.2 billion in the first half of the year, up from $120 million a year earlier. Most of this increase came from an extra $2.7 billion in fees paid to partners that help sell its products, including the cloud companies.

The IPO filing, known as an S-1, also warns about risks. Anthropic describes the cloud companies as "investors, customers, distribution partners and competitors" at the same time. It warns that these companies can see its prices and business terms. The filing also says they might give their own AI models an advantage. Anthropic’s relationships with these companies have already attracted attention from antitrust authorities, which investigate whether businesses are breaking competition laws, and could face more scrutiny.

Anthropic’s IPO will be an important test of how public-market investors feel about AI companies. Investors are already paying more attention to the high cost of building AI systems. Reports that Anthropic’s revenue growth slowed in the third quarter added to a wider technology stock selloff earlier this month. Investors were concerned that companies might be spending more on AI than customer demand can support.

Anthropic has previously faced criticism over what are called "circular deals" in the technology industry. In these deals, the same companies put money into a business and also receive money from it. Anthropic is a major customer of Amazon Web Services (AWS), using Amazon’s data centers and chips to train and run its Claude models. Amazon also offers Claude through its Bedrock platform. In the same way, Anthropic uses Google’s custom AI chips, while Google sells Claude through its own cloud platform.

Anthropic depends on these same companies for computing power. It has agreed to spend at least $114.5 billion with Google through 2033, $110 billion with Amazon through 2036 and $44.9 billion with Microsoft. These minimum payments are due whether or not Anthropic uses all the computing power it has agreed to buy.

These figures show how the companies can be both friends and rivals. When Anthropic made its deal with Amazon in April, it called AWS its "primary training and cloud provider for mission-critical workloads." However, Anthropic’s minimum spending commitment to Google is larger and covers a shorter period. Anthropic also estimates that it will spend another $125 billion to $150 billion on additional computing capacity using Google’s Tensor Processing Units and other providers’ systems. This capacity is expected to be delivered from 2028 to 2031.

According to Bloomberg calculations, Amazon currently has an economic stake of about 9% in Anthropic, counting shares it could receive after converting certain financial investments into stock and assuming all potential shares are included. Amazon also holds $6.2 billion in outstanding convertible notes issued under financing agreements signed in 2023 and 2024. These notes could be converted into 1.84 billion shares, equal to another 11% of Anthropic. Amazon’s ownership is limited to a maximum of 12%, but it can choose to waive that limit.

Google, meanwhile, has invested about $23 billion in Anthropic through several deals and has agreed to invest another $20 billion if certain performance targets are met. According to Bloomberg calculations, Google currently has an economic stake of at least 6.6%, counting shares it could receive after converting certain investments and including all potential shares. These calculations do not include a separate $300 million investment Google made in 2002. The Financial Times reported that investment, but Monday’s filing does not describe it.

Google also has $20 billion in remaining funding available under a 2026 agreement. If Google provides this money, it could receive more shares or convertible notes. Under its latest financing deal, Google’s ownership stake is limited to 14.99%, although Google can also waive that limit.

Google also has the option to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic shares through a private placement at the same time as Anthropic’s IPO. The shares would be sold at the public offering price. Any money Google invests through this option would reduce the amount of funding still available under its other financing agreement.

Amazon and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The filing explains how closely Anthropic’s success is tied to the cloud companies. Anthropic says moving its computing work to other providers would be "costly, time-consuming" and could make its computing less efficient.

Anthropic also depends on other suppliers, not just the three major cloud companies. It has $161.2 billion in equipment leases with Broadcom Inc. and has agreed to spend up to $120.5 billion on computing power from SpaceXAI. The company also says chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has sometimes been unable to supply as many chips as needed.