Anthropic has moved to secure its own power infrastructure, spending $3.4 billion on gas generators, after concerns spread that the Democratic Party's sweeping midterm election victory could hamper data center operations.
The Financial Times reported Sunday (local time) that Anthropic acquired a purchase commitment for 1.7 GW of large-scale generators from OnePWR Solutions, an equipment supplier based in San Antonio, Texas, in late September. Anthropic effectively took over an existing generator order that OnePWR had placed. The deal is considered the largest single power equipment purchase ever made by an AI company.
Anthropic did not acquire OnePWR itself, but the agreement includes the engineering and construction capabilities needed to install the generators. According to one person familiar with the matter, OnePWR had placed the generator order with Caterpillar two years ago but needed financing to close the deal. Anthropic had originally planned to become a customer of OnePWR but instead agreed to take over the order.
As competition for data center capacity has intensified and power demand has surged, demand for gas turbines and generators has soared, pushing manufacturing lead times to several years. AI companies are responding by bypassing intermediaries and taking direct control of equipment production, the Financial Times said.
Elon Musk's xAI, owned by SpaceX, purchased mobile gas turbines for $2 billion earlier this year. Google parent Alphabet acquired energy developer Intersect Power late last year.
Anthropic is also a customer that has contracted to lease computing capacity from SpaceX. Those payments are estimated to reach $3.1 billion per month by the end of this year.
Arash Najad, head of clean energy and power at investment bank Stifel, said companies "believe that by owning part of the power infrastructure and building their own capabilities, they can better protect themselves from disruptions beyond their control." The comment reflects growing efforts by AI firms to build in-house power infrastructure capabilities in response to concerns that securing and operating data centers could become more difficult following the Democratic Party's takeover of Congress.
kate01@heraldcorp.com
