Anthropic swings to a $567m operating loss with $895.4bn of commitments

Revenue grew about 47% in the three months to 30 September, down from about 144% in the prior quarter, and was $1.4bn a year earlier. Operating expenses rose to $17.5bn from $10.6bn, turning a $974m operating profit into a $567m loss. Anthropic blamed $5bn of short-term computing that it says costs significantly more than its multi-year deals, and $2bn of non-cash charges from an employee donation-matching programme. The net loss of $23.3bn came mostly from an accounting charge on convertible notes.

The filing puts commitments at about $895bn, nearly all for computing and data centres, of which about $70bn falls due within a year and nearly $450bn by the end of 2030. Anthropic held about $132bn of cash and short-term investments at the end of September.

It estimates that 5% to 7% of revenue in the first nine months came from customers breaking its usage policy or commercial terms, and warned that tighter enforcement may slow growth. Price cuts and discounts took about $600m off third-quarter revenue.