Anthropic would use natural gas to power Claude… and could spark debate

Anthropic has reportedly reached a $3.4 billion deal to equip its data centers with generators that run on natural gas. A strategy that would allow him to buy time, but which could run into political obstacles and raise new ecological concerns.

Anthropic does not want to start manufacturing new generators to power its data centers. The American company therefore took over order commitments initially made two years previously by the company OnePWR Solutions. Important point: these generators run on natural gas, an increasingly sought-after energy source, the extraction and combustion of which has a significant impact on the environment.

According to information from the Financial Times, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has reached an agreement worth 3.4 billion dollars (around 3 billion euros) to equip its data centers with generators running on natural gas. These generators would offer a cumulative power of 1.7 GW. In other words, Anthropic wants to develop its own electricity production capacities to power its installations dedicated to artificial intelligence.

To be more precise, Anthropic took over existing orders for gas-fired generators from Caterpillar, initially placed two years earlier by OnePWR Solutions, a Texas company specializing in electricity production and distribution infrastructure. Also note that this amount of $3.4 billion includes the purchase of generators, but also engineering and construction services. At the time of writing, we do not yet know where these electricity generators will be installed, but they are likely to spark a lot of debate.

As part of the preparation for its IPO, Anthropic revealed that it had made financial commitments of approximately $895.4 billion for the purchase and rental of computing capacity and infrastructure. In its stock market filing, the company also warned that the rush for gas to power data centers “could drive up the price of natural gas in certain regions.” Anthropic, which recently announced the launch of a general interest fund, now seems to be actively participating in this rush for natural gas.

It must be said that the manufacture of new generators takes several years and requires respecting various industrial and regulatory constraints. Given the frantic race in which the main AI suppliers are engaged, Anthropic does not want to waste time and is therefore taking back orders for generators already placed by OnePWR Solutions.

But Anthropic's move could now be significantly undermined by the Democrats' recent victory in the US midterm elections. Immediately after the election results, the stock of several companies that work with data centers fell sharply. According to Goldman Sachs, the Democratic victory could temporarily slow nearly 45% of the planned increase in data center capacity in the United States. To this are of course added the ecological questions linked to the extraction and combustion of natural gas. In short, Anthropic wants to take a shortcut, but Democrats could stand in its way.

Machine-translated from French