Anthropic-Google TPU deal

The Anthropic-Google TPU deal is a set of escalating compute and investment agreements between the AI lab Anthropic and Google, built around Anthropic running Claude on Google's tensor processing units (TPUs). The arrangement grew through several steps. In October 2025 Anthropic announced plans to use up to 1 million TPUs, with well over a gigawatt of capacity coming online in 2026, in an expansion it said was worth tens of billions of dollars. In April 2026 the partnership expanded sharply: a new agreement among Anthropic, Google and chip supplier Broadcom added multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity from 2027, which Anthropic later described as 5 GW, and Google agreed to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic. The Information reported in May 2026 that Anthropic had committed about $200 billion to Google Cloud over five years, a figure neither company confirmed. In September 2026 Reuters, which reviewed Anthropic's confidential IPO prospectus, reported commitments of at least $111.1 billion to Google from April 2026 to July 2033, alongside about $161.2 billion of Broadcom-related equipment lease obligations.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The agreement matters because it is one of the largest deployments of non-NVIDIA silicon for training and serving a frontier AI model, and because Google is both a major investor in Anthropic and a direct competitor through its own Gemini models.

Deal terms and scale

The partnership came in distinct stages, and the numbers attached to each are easy to confuse. Some were announced by the companies, some appear in securities filings or earnings calls, and others come from press reports citing unnamed people or a confidential prospectus. The table below separates them; the list of AI compute deals sets them beside Anthropic's other compute contracts.

The October 2025 announcement was the headline event for the TPU count itself. Anthropic said it would access "up to one million TPUs" and that "well over a gigawatt of capacity" would come online in 2026.^[3] Neither company disclosed an exact price; Anthropic and Google said the expansion was worth tens of billions of dollars.^[3][6] CNBC noted that industry estimates put the cost of a one-gigawatt AI data center at around $50 billion, with roughly $35 billion of that typically going to the chips.^[1][17]

Broadcom, which sells the TPU racks, filled in part of the hardware picture on its December 11, 2025 earnings call. Chief executive Hock Tan said the $10 billion order for Ironwood racks that Broadcom had received in its previous quarter came from Anthropic, and that the same customer had placed an additional $11 billion order for delivery in late 2026.^[7]

The April 2026 steps changed the scale again. On April 6, Anthropic said it had signed a new agreement with Google and Broadcom for "multiple gigawatts" of next-generation TPU capacity expected to come online starting in 2027.^[8] Google Cloud said the capacity would be delivered through Google Cloud services as well as through access to Google-built TPUs supplied through Broadcom.^[18] Broadcom's Form 8-K, filed the same day, put a number on part of it: beginning in 2027, Anthropic would access about 3.5 gigawatts through Broadcom, as part of the multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU-based capacity it had committed to.^[9] Tom's Hardware reported that this came on top of the 1 GW already arriving in 2026 under the October 2025 agreement.^[10] In the same filing Broadcom disclosed a long-term agreement to develop and supply custom TPUs for Google's future generations, and a supply assurance agreement to provide networking and other components for Google's next-generation AI racks through up to 2031.^[9] Broadcom's filing said that Anthropic's consumption of the expanded capacity "is dependent on Anthropic's continued commercial success."^[9] A month later, Anthropic described the arrangement as a 5 GW agreement with Google and Broadcom that would begin coming online in 2027.^[11]

On April 24, the companies confirmed that Google would invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic. Google had already invested more than $3 billion in the company since 2023 and reportedly owned about 14% of it.^[13] According to Anthropic, Google committed $10 billion in cash at a $350 billion valuation, with up to $30 billion more to follow if Anthropic met certain performance targets.^[2][12] The $350 billion figure matches the pre-money valuation of Anthropic's February 2026 Series G round, which raised $30 billion at a $380 billion post-money valuation; CNBC described the price as Anthropic's latest valuation of $380 billion.^[19][13] Bloomberg reported that Google Cloud would provide 5 gigawatts of capacity over the next five years, with room to add more.^[2][12] CNBC tied that 5 GW to the capacity Anthropic had secured in the April 6 announcement with Google and Broadcom, which matches Anthropic's own later description.^[13][11]

The Information reported on May 5, 2026, citing a person with knowledge of the matter, that Anthropic had committed to spend $200 billion with Google Cloud over five years, beginning in 2027. If accurate, the commitment would account for more than 40% of the revenue backlog Google had disclosed to investors the week before. Reuters could not verify the report; Anthropic declined to comment, and Google referred questions to Anthropic.^[4][14]

Reuters, which reviewed a copy of Anthropic's confidential IPO prospectus, reported on September 29, 2026 that the company had committed to spend at least $111.1 billion with Google between April 2026 and July 2033 under long-term infrastructure service obligations, and quoted the filing: "If our actual spend falls short, we must pay Google the difference." The same report listed about $161.2 billion of Broadcom-related equipment lease obligations, which the filing said were non-cancelable by either party except in the case of a default.^[5] On October 1, Reuters reported that the prospectus showed Broadcom agreeing to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion through convertible notes, which could finance about a third of a $125.2 billion commitment for a five-year lease of TPU computing capacity. Anthropic said in the filing that it had deposited cash into a restricted account for Broadcom's benefit in April 2026.^[16] The Google figure in the prospectus, about $111.1 billion over roughly seven years, is lower than the $200 billion The Information had reported, although the prospectus lists the Broadcom-related equipment lease obligations separately.^[5][4]

Why Anthropic uses Google TPUs

Anthropic has used Google's TPUs since 2023, when it and Google Cloud announced a strategic partnership, and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian framed the 2025 expansion as a vote of confidence in the hardware.^[6][20] "Anthropic's choice to significantly expand its usage of TPUs reflects the strong price-performance and efficiency its teams have seen with TPUs for several years," he said, citing Google's seventh-generation TPU, Ironwood.^[3] In April 2026 Google announced an eighth generation split into two chips for the first time, TPU 8t for training and TPU 8i for inference, both due for Google Cloud customers later in the year.^[21] On September 2, 2026, Broadcom said it had delivered Ironwood in high volume to both Anthropic and Google during the quarter and had begun production shipments of the TPU 8i for Google, and that it expected Anthropic to deploy 5 GW of the TPU 8i in 2027.^[15]

Anthropic does not rely on a single chip. The company trains and serves Claude across three platforms: Google TPUs, Amazon Trainium (including the Project Rainier cluster of hundreds of thousands of chips with Amazon), and NVIDIA GPUs.^[3] Amazon remained its primary cloud provider and training partner after the April 2026 expansion, a relationship covered in Anthropic-Amazon Trainium expansion.^[8] In announcing the October 2025 expansion, Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao said: "Anthropic and Google have a longstanding partnership and this latest expansion will help us continue to grow the compute we need to define the frontier of AI."^[3] Anthropic says the mix of hardware lets it match workloads to the chips best suited for them and gives customers greater resilience, and CNBC reported that spreading workloads across vendors lets the company tune for price, performance and power constraints.^[8][1]

What it means for Google Cloud and the non-NVIDIA path

For Google Cloud, Anthropic is a marquee anchor tenant for its custom silicon. NVIDIA GPUs still dominate AI training, so every additional gigawatt that a frontier lab runs on TPUs strengthens Google's argument that its chips are a credible alternative rather than an in-house curiosity. The Broadcom partnership reinforces that: Broadcom acts as the implementation partner that turns Google's TPU designs into manufacturable chips and supplies networking, packaging and other components, while TSMC handles fabrication.^[10][9] Broadcom said in September 2026 that Anthropic was on track to become its largest customer for custom accelerators in 2027 and to remain so in 2028.^[15]

The financial structure also lowers the risk of Google's own capital spending. A Motley Fool analysis argued that Anthropic's commitment to use 5 gigawatts of TPU capacity all but guarantees that the capacity Alphabet builds for it will be sold at adequate returns.^[22] The prospectus terms reported by Reuters point the same way, since Anthropic must pay Google the difference if its spending falls short of the commitment.^[5] Reuters described the money flowing between Anthropic and its cloud partners as "an increasingly circular financial relationship": Amazon and Google have invested tens of billions of dollars in Anthropic, while Anthropic has made enormous commitments to buy computing capacity.^[23]

Broadcom's role has grown beyond chip supply. On its September 2, 2026 earnings call, Broadcom said it had set up an AI financing platform with Apollo and Blackstone in June to enable more than 20 gigawatts of compute for OpenAI and Anthropic by the end of 2028, and had closed a first $35 billion tranche in June for Anthropic's 1 gigawatt deployment, which was already under way. Broadcom said third-party financial partners underwrite and capitalize the assets and that it may provide modest residual value guarantees where necessary.^[15]

Compute strategy and Claude training

The deal fits Anthropic's broader push to lock in compute well ahead of demand. In April 2026 Anthropic said its run-rate revenue had passed $30 billion, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, and that the number of business customers spending more than $1 million a year had doubled to more than 1,000 in less than two months.^[8] Anthropic said the new capacity would power its frontier Claude models and serve customer demand, and that the vast majority of it would be sited in the United States, expanding its November 2025 commitment to invest $50 billion in American computing infrastructure.^[8][10]

Anthropic announced on June 1, 2026 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement for an IPO.^[24] According to Reuters, the prospectus showed planned AI infrastructure spending of at least $518 billion over a decade with six partners, about 80% of it non-cancelable or payable regardless of usage, and told investors that future demand for advanced AI systems was likely to exceed supply and would be "limited principally by the availability of compute."^[5] Reuters also reported that Anthropic had $54.6 billion of non-cancelable hosting and computing commitments at the end of 2025, and that by early 2026 its total long-term commitments exceeded $417 billion, covering 3.5 gigawatts of dedicated computing capacity.^[23]

The compute is also tied to Anthropic's model roadmap. When Google's investment was announced in April 2026, Anthropic had released its newest and most capable model, Claude Mythos, only to a limited group of partners, restricting wider access because its cybersecurity capabilities could be misused.^[2][22]

Reactions

Data Center Dynamics described the October 2025 agreement as confirmation of a "massive" 1 GW-plus cloud deal with up to 1 million TPUs.^[20] Coverage of the April 2026 investment focused on the unusual position of Google investing in a company it competes with.^[2][13] A Motley Fool analysis argued the April investment looked cheap for Google, noting that Anthropic's annualized revenue had more than tripled in four months and that the $10 billion came in at the same $350 billion valuation at which long-tenured employees had been offered the chance to sell shares in an April tender, with reports saying they sold far fewer than expected.^[22]

Skeptics raised the circularity of large AI-infrastructure deals, where chipmakers, cloud providers and model labs invest in one another and book each other's spending as revenue. CNBC noted when Google's investment was announced that much of the money tech giants were putting into frontier labs would return to them in the form of revenue.^[13] Reuters described Anthropic's relationship with Broadcom, which spans compute supply, equipment leasing and financing, as a prime example of the reciprocal spending that has fed AI skepticism on Wall Street, and quoted Robert Leitao, managing partner of Rothschild & Co: "It feels that there's quite a concentrated bet right now on two companies being able to generate enough revenues to support all the financing that's happened."^[16] According to Reuters, the prospectus itself warns that Broadcom's role as both hardware supplier and financing partner creates "potential conflicts of interest", and that Amazon, Google and Microsoft act at once as investors, customers, cloud providers, distributors and competitors, with incentives that "may not be fully aligned" with Anthropic's.^[16][5] Anthropic also presented the cloud relationships as an advantage, saying that selling Claude through the large cloud platforms accelerates "market penetration at a scale we believe would be difficult for any single organization to directly replicate."^[23]

References

1. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Google and Anthropic announce cloud deal worth tens of billions of dollars, CNBC, October 23, 2025.
2. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic in cash and compute, TechCrunch, April 24, 2026.
3. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7Expanding our use of Google Cloud TPUs and Services, Anthropic, October 23, 2025.
4. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Anthropic Commits to Spending $200 Billion on Google's Cloud and Chips, the Information Reports, U.S. News / Reuters, May 5, 2026.
5. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7Anthropic's $518bln AI buildout hinges largely on deals that cannot be canceled, filing shows, Reuters via Zawya, September 29, 2026.
6. ^1 ^2 ^3Anthropic to Expand Use of Google Cloud TPUs and Services, Google Cloud, October 23, 2025.
7. ^1 ^2Broadcom (AVGO) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript, The Motley Fool via Yahoo Finance, December 12, 2025.
8. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Anthropic expands partnership with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of next-generation compute, Anthropic, April 6, 2026.
9. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Broadcom Inc. Form 8-K (Item 8.01, Other Events), Broadcom Inc. via SEC EDGAR, April 6, 2026.
10. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Broadcom to supply Anthropic with 3.5 gigawatts of Google TPU capacity from 2027, Tom's Hardware, April 7, 2026.
11. ^1 ^2 ^3Higher usage limits for Claude and a compute deal with SpaceX, Anthropic, May 6, 2026.
12. ^1 ^2 ^3Google Plans to Invest Up to $40 Billion in Anthropic, Bloomberg, April 24, 2026.
13. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6Google to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic as search giant spreads its AI bets, CNBC, April 24, 2026.
14. ^1 ^2This AI Stock Could Be Landing a $200 Billion Anthropic Deal. Here's Why Investors Should Pay Attention., The Motley Fool, May 7, 2026.
15. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Broadcom (AVGO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript, The Motley Fool, September 9, 2026.
16. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Exclusive-Broadcom to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion to lease its chips, filing says, Reuters via The Star, October 1, 2026.
17. ^Anthropic's Google Cloud Deal Includes 1 Million TPUs, 1 GW of Capacity In 2026, Slashdot, October 23, 2025.
18. ^Anthropic Expands Use of Google Cloud and TPUs, Google Cloud, April 6, 2026.
19. ^Anthropic raises $30 billion in Series G funding at $380 billion post-money valuation, Anthropic, February 12, 2026.
20. ^1 ^2Google and Anthropic confirm massive 1GW+ cloud deal with up to 1 million Google TPUs, Data Center Dynamics, October 24, 2025.
21. ^Inside Google's TPU V8 strategy, delivering two chips for two crucial tasks at incredible scale, Tom's Hardware, April 27, 2026.
22. ^1 ^2 ^3Google Is Getting a Screaming Bargain on Its New Anthropic Investment. Here's Why., The Motley Fool, April 27, 2026.
23. ^1 ^2 ^3Exclusive-Anthropic IPO prospectus lays bare deep dependence on Big Tech partners, Reuters via The Star, September 29, 2026.
24. ^AI giant Anthropic prepares to sell stock to the public; files preliminary IPO paperwork, NPR via Georgia Public Broadcasting, June 1, 2026.