Anthropic Buys $3.4 Billion of Caterpillar Turbines as AI Power Shortage Deepens

1 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Nov 9

$3.4 billion will buy Anthropic up to 1.7 gigawatts of Caterpillar natural-gas generation, a rare infrastructure purchase for a company that has typically rented compute capacity.
Anthropic moved as turbine backlogs stretch into the early 2030s and grid-connection queues are similarly long, making secured power capacity increasingly hard to obtain.
The generators were originally ordered by supplier OnePWR, which could not complete the purchase; Anthropic had planned to buy through OnePWR before going directly to Caterpillar.
The shift contrasts with Anthropic’s May S-1, which disclosed a $1.25 billion-a-month deal with xAI through May 2029 and signaled more service contracts rather than owned infrastructure.
Anthropic joins Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta in turning to on-site gas power, a buildout that could push U.S. data-center gas demand above Germany and Japan combined by 2035.

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Why is a leading AI startup suddenly spending billions on fossil fuel hardware instead of cloud computing?

As AI giants hoard power equipment, will everyday consumers end up footing the bill for soaring electricity costs?

With turbine backlogs stretching into the 2030s, could the global AI race be halted by a simple lack of electricity?

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