Anthropic Buys 1.7GW Gas Turbines for $3.4 Billion

Anthropic has purchased 1.7 GW of Caterpillar natural gas turbines for $3.4 billion, marking the largest power equipment procurement by an AI company to date. The move represents the first major self-build of physical infrastructure for a firm that has long preferred leasing compute, as it confronts a power supply bottleneck with gas turbine orders booked into the early 2030s and lengthy grid interconnection queues.

Cross-source verification shows Anthropic took over an order placed by OnePWR Solutions two years ago that the latter could not finance, allowing it to bypass multi-year manufacturing lead times and price increases. Deliveries will be phased over the next two years. This follows similar moves by xAI, which purchased $2 billion in mobile gas turbines this year, and Alphabet's acquisition of Intersect, as AI giants bypass utilities to secure power directly. The compute race is evolving into a contest for energy and infrastructure.

While the deal secures critical power supply, it carries financial risk: some analysts expect electricity prices in certain markets to more than triple by the end of the decade, making procurement timing and cost control a test of operational capability. Overall, AI labs are shifting from asset-light to asset-heavy models, with power replacing chips as the core bottleneck for compute expansion.