Anthropic’s Growth Slows to 47 Percent as Compute Bites

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — Anthropic’sAnthropic’s revenue rose about 47 percent in the third quarter from the second, to $16.96 billion, according to an amended prospectus it filed with the S.E.C. on Monday morning. The rise had been 144 percent in the second quarter and 132 percent in the first.

The quarter also brought an operating loss of $567 million, after $974 million of operating income in the second, which Anthropic puts chiefly down to $5.0 billion of compute bought under short-term commitments and $2.0 billion of non-cash donation-matching charges. Such compute, the filing says, “currently costs significantly more” than compute under its multi-year commitments.

They are the first figures Anthropic has filed for the quarter, which ended Sept. 30; the financial statements in the version it made public on Oct. 26 ran through June 30. At an investor day on Oct. 14, it had told prospective investors that third-quarter revenue rose 45 percent to $16.8 billion, Reuters reported, a little short of the $16,956 million now filed. The amendment also adds a passage on its Responsible Scaling Policy, reported separately in this edition.

The slowdown is now on the record while the price of the offering is still unset, and investors’ view of that price has been slipping. After Anthropic’s meetings with investors, those investors cut the valuation they regard as fair to about $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion, Bloomberg News reported on Monday in a Japanese-language account carried by TBS, citing people familiar with the matter; some of those people said a valuation near $1.75 trillion was also achievable. For the buyers, the question is how much of the slower growth and thinner margin is the cost of buying compute in a hurry, and how much is the new pace.

By the filing’s quarterly table, revenue climbed from $376 million in the first quarter of 2025 to $2.04 billion in the fourth, $11.56 billion in the second quarter of this year and $16.96 billion in the third. Compute and infrastructure, the company’s largest cost, rose from $944 million to $9.86 billion over the same quarters. It was 2.5 times revenue in the first quarter of 2025 and 48 percent of it in the second quarter of this year; in the third it grew 77 percent, against revenue’s 47, and rose to 58 percent of revenue.

Growth has slowed this far before. Revenue rose 47.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, by our arithmetic, a shade faster than in the third quarter of this year, and then 132 percent in the first quarter of this year. From a year earlier, third-quarter revenue grew 1,127 percent and compute and infrastructure expenses 382 percent, the filing says. Higher usage in the quarter was partly offset, it adds, by about $600 million of price reductions that came with new model versions and contractual discounts.

The Short-Term Bill

Anthropic buys most of its computing power long in advance: “the majority of our compute is contracted under multi-year commitments that we typically procure 12 to 18 months in advance of availability,” the filing says. When customer demand or research needs exceed that capacity, it buys short-term compute. In the third quarter that came to $5.0 billion, out of $6.5 billion for the first nine months of the year, which leaves about $1.5 billion for the first half, by our arithmetic.Short-Term ComputeThe filing does not name the sellers. Minimum payments under short-term contracts, which it leaves out of its table of contractual obligations, were about $17.4 billion on Sept. 30, and after the quarter it signed further short-term agreements with minimum payments of about $6.6 billion.

The amendment hardens the original’s language. The Oct. 26 filing said short-term compute “typically carries a higher cost per unit of compute” and that Anthropic expected its use “to increase in the near term.” The new one says it “currently costs significantly more.” “We expect our use of short-term compute to continue to increase in the near term and to in turn compress our operating margin and Adjusted Operating Margin as a result,” the amendment says.

We expect our use of short-term compute to continue to increase in the near term and to in turn compress our operating margin and Adjusted Operating Margin as a result.

The short-term compute “reduced revenue per dollar of compute compared to the preceding quarter,” the filing says. It argues that margins will swing as compute arrives, a cycle that “will cause operating margins to fluctuate from period to period, at times meaningfully, even if the underlying economics of the business continue to improve.”

On the company’s own measure the margin fell too. Adjusted Operating Income, a non-GAAP measure the filing defines, rose to $2.5 billion from $2.2 billion, but Adjusted Operating Margin fell from 19 percent to 15 percent, “primarily driven by the $5.0 billion of short-term compute,” the filing says.Adjusted Operating IncomeAnthropic’s definition: operating loss excluding stock-based compensation, non-cash charitable contributions and the $1.5 billion charge in 2025 to settle Bartz, a copyright infringement class action. In the third quarter it added back $1.07 billion of stock-based compensation and $1.96 billion of donation-matching charges. The donation program lets employees pledge part of their equity awards to nonprofits, and Anthropic matches the gifts with shares of its Class N common stock; such charges came to $2.1 billion in the nine months, about 6 percent of total operating expenses.

Below the operating line the numbers are larger and mostly on paper. Anthropic’s net loss for the quarter was $23.3 billion, including a $21.9 billion charge for the change in fair value of its convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs, which the filing ties chiefly to the notes’ rising value, “resulting from increases in our enterprise valuation.”The Paper LossThe expense was largest in the second quarter, when the net loss was $66.3 billion, reflecting the rise in Anthropic’s valuation with its Series H financing, the filing says. It will go on recognizing such changes until the instruments are converted into equity, repaid or otherwise settled. For the nine months, revenue was $33.2 billion, against $2.5 billion a year earlier, and the net loss $104.0 billion, including $94.3 billion of such fair-value changes.

The Commitments

The amendment also fills in a figure the original left blank (“more than $ ”). As of and after Sept. 30, Anthropic says, it has purchase commitments and lease agreements, including short-term commitments and leases not yet begun, with an aggregate committed spend of about $895.4 billion, substantially all of it related to compute and infrastructure. About $447.5 billion of it is expected before Dec. 31, 2030, and substantially all the rest between 2031 and 2045. The total leaves out other compute and infrastructure arrangements that set no fixed dollar amount; what they cost will depend on the capacity delivered, its timing and pricing, and conditions yet to be met, and Anthropic estimates those payments at about $150 billion to $175 billion.

About $69.8 billion of its commitments is due in the 12 months after Sept. 30, against $146.6 billion of liquidity that Anthropic had on that date, before any proceeds from the offering. The year’s payments come to about 48 percent of that liquidity, by our arithmetic.LiquidityAs the filing defines it: $95.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents, $36.3 billion of short-term investments and $14.8 billion available under its credit facility. It also cites up to $77.0 billion of financing capacity under note purchase agreements and up to $5.0 billion in equity commitments from strategic partners. About $213.8 billion of the total is subject to termination rights or to conditions before it begins, such as a counterparty’s ability to secure financing; of the $69.8 billion due within a year, about $4.3 billion is.

A significant portion of the total relates to Anthropic Direct, under which it leases chips and hosts them in dedicated facilities run on its behalf, which it says will let it “backfill the short-term compute we procure during periods of high demand with more cost-effective, long-term compute as our dedicated infrastructure comes online.”

Remaining performance obligations, revenue under non-cancelable contracts not yet recognized, were $13.8 billion on Sept. 30, up from $10.8 billion on June 30, and Anthropic expects to recognize about 75 percent of it within 12 months. Its top five customers provided about 25 percent of revenue in the nine months, none more than 10 percent, and many of its top customers, it warns, lack long-term contracts or have contracts that expire soon, and “are able to reduce or in some cases cease spending at any time and for any reason.”

What Comes Next

The amendment still gives no price range, no share count and no date: its cover reads “between $ and $,” and no further filing had appeared on EDGAR by 5:46 a.m. Tuesday, New York time. A further amendment that fills them in is the next thing to watch.

Daily Cortex is written with AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude, and fact-checked with OpenAI’s GPT models.