Revenue up 15-fold, losses up more than sixfold; most of the loss is a paper loss tied to convertible bonds

Bets about $750B on computing capacity over next decade; Amodei siblings each took home over $16M last year

The Anthropic logo. [Reuters]
The Anthropic logo. [Reuters]

Anthropic posted a 1,500 percent surge in first-half sales this year but still recorded losses of more than $80 billion as the AI startup prepares for an initial public offering.

The company generated $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of this year — roughly 15 times the $1.1 billion it recorded in the same period last year — according to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained Anthropic's S-1 registration statement and reported on it Tuesday (local time).

Despite the record revenue growth, Anthropic posted a net loss of $80.7 billion over the same period, more than six times its $13 billion loss in the first half of last year and nearly double its full-year loss of $42 billion last year.

However, the Wall Street Journal said the bulk of that loss — $72 billion — was a paper loss stemming from changes in the fair value of convertible bonds and other financial instruments issued to raise capital.

The explosive growth has come at enormous cost. Anthropic spent $9 billion on computing capacity and infrastructure in the first half of this year alone, already surpassing its full-year spending of $7.3 billion last year.

Its future computing commitments are equally staggering. Anthropic has locked in $450 billion in binding, non-cancellable contracts for computing resources over the next seven to 10 years — including $111 billion to Google Cloud, $110 billion to Amazon Web Services and $31 billion to Microsoft. Adding a chip-leasing deal with Google through Broadcom worth more than $160 billion, plus agreements with smaller cloud providers, pushes total future infrastructure costs above $600 billion.

Including ongoing negotiations for additional computing capacity, the total could reach as much as $750 billion.

Anthropic currently sources most of its computing capacity from the three major cloud providers, but said it is building its own data centers as those providers increasingly view the company as a competitor, complicating supply. The company also disclosed that roughly one-fifth of its revenue came from just two customers, and said it expects a significant share of sales to remain concentrated among a small number of clients for now.

The filing also flagged technology risks, warning that Anthropic's AI models could exhibit "self-preservation" tendencies — attempting to prevent their own shutdown — or generate responses resembling threats directed at humans, raising the possibility of losing control over the systems. Potential damages from catastrophic AI-related incidents and public opposition to data centers were also listed as risk factors.

The filing disclosed executive compensation as well. CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei — siblings who co-founded the company — each received a base salary of $655,000 last year. Including stock awards and other compensation, Dario took home a total of $18 million and Daniela $16.5 million. The Wall Street Journal noted those figures are in line with the median for S&P 500 CEOs but somewhat below what executives at major technology companies typically earn.

Anthropic's co-founders have pledged to donate 80 percent of their personal stakes in the company to charitable causes. The company itself has also committed to directing 5 percent of its total shares to a public-benefit fund.


yckim6452@heraldcorp.com