Anthropic Puts $2.4B of $8.9B Compute in Cost of Revenue

Anthropic recorded $8.9 billion of compute and infrastructure expense in the first half of 2026, but its cost of revenue for the same six months was $2.4 billion, according to the Form S-1 it filed with the SEC on 26 October 2026. At least $6.6 billion, or about 73%, of the compute bill sits in other expense lines, by our arithmetic.

On those figures, revenue less cost of revenue was about 85% of revenue in the first half of 2026, against about 12% a year earlier, by our arithmetic. The S-1 itself does not report a gross margin.

Where the Filing Puts Compute

The S-1 presents expenses two ways. Its statements of operations show compute and infrastructure as one line: $3,387 million in the first quarter of 2026 and $5,558 million in the second, our sum $8,945 million. A note to the financial statements regroups the same expenses by function.

In that note, cost of revenue was $2,380 million for the six months to 30 June 2026. “Substantially all of cost of revenue consists of compute and infrastructure costs associated with customer-serving workloads. Additionally, cost of revenue includes certain personnel-related costs and allocated overhead costs”, the filing says.

Research and development, $9,741 million in the half, “primarily consist of compute and infrastructure costs associated with model development, research, and internal usage workloads”, along with personnel, software and overhead. Sales and marketing, $3,808 million, include “compute and infrastructure costs associated with providing free access to the Company’s intelligence service”.

Source: Anthropic, PBC Form S-1, filed with the SEC on 26 October 2026, Note 8 (functional presentation) and non-GAAP reconciliation (US$ millions, unaudited). The last column is our arithmetic; the S-1 does not report a gross margin.

What Was Posted on X

SemiAnalysis posts that Anthropic’s S-1 shows inference revenue per megawatt nearly quadrupling in a year, quoting the line ‘Inference revenue per megawatt went from sixteen million last year to sixty plus currently, across the entire fleet.’ The post also quotes revenue growth of 1,368% year over year for the three months ended June 30 against 300% growth in compute and infrastructure expenses, and says Anthropic has TPU, Trainium, Nvidia GPU and AMD GPU all online.

Why the Split Matters

Because training, research, internal use of Claude and free-tier serving are counted outside cost of revenue, a margin built only from cost of revenue leaves most of the compute bill out. The filing’s full measure, operating margin, was (4)% for the first half of 2026, and its own Adjusted Operating Margin was 10%.

Cost of revenue also holds some personnel and overhead costs, so the compute inside it is at most $2.4 billion and the compute elsewhere at least $6.6 billion.

Connecting the Coverage

Our compute piece reported the bill falling to 48% of revenue by the second quarter of 2026, and our pool piece covered the filing’s account of one fungible compute pool directed between research, model development, customers and internal use. What is new here is where that pool’s cost lands in the accounts.

The Structural Read

As we read it, the 85% figure measures only the compute that serves paying customers; training the next model, research, internal use and free-tier serving sit elsewhere.

The same filing reports an operating margin of (4)% for the first half of 2026, which counts all of those costs.

As we read it, the split also explains why the compute bill and cost of revenue can move differently from quarter to quarter: the filing sends the same pool to different workloads.

Three Implications

FOR INVESTORS A gross margin built from the S-1’s cost of revenue line was about 85% in the first half of 2026 by our arithmetic, while the filing’s operating margin was (4)%.

FOR ANALYSTS COMPARING LABS The S-1 classes compute for model development, research and internal use in research and development, and free-tier serving in sales and marketing.

FOR COMPETITORS The filing’s functional note shows $9,741 million of research and development in the half, more than its $2,380 million cost of revenue.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The Subsidized AGI Economy.

The analysis argues that the same margin charts are being read as “AI subscriptions are a bubble”, “confusing accounting margin with strategic position”.

As we read it, the S-1 shows how much the accounting choice matters: the same compute bill gives an 85% margin on one line and a (4)% operating margin on another. The analysis was published in June 2026 and does not discuss this filing.

What Is Not Established

The S-1 does not give a gross margin, a split of compute expense by workload, or the share of cost of revenue that is compute. Our margin figures are a calculation from its cost of revenue line, not a company metric.

Further reading: Peter Gostev’s visual guide to the S-1, which pointed us to this part of the filing. The figures here are our own reading of the filing.

The Bottom Line

Anthropic’s S-1 shows $8.9 billion of compute and infrastructure expense in the first half of 2026 and $2.4 billion of cost of revenue, so at least about 73% of the compute bill sits in research and development and sales and marketing, by our arithmetic. A margin built from cost of revenue alone was about 85%; the filing’s operating margin for the half was (4)%.