Anthropic spent $5.0 billion in the third quarter on compute bought under short-term commitments, compute that “currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments”, its S-1/A of 10 November says. The same filing puts minimum payments under short-term contracts at about $17.4 billion as of 30 September, and about $6.6 billion more under short-term agreements signed after that date.
Together that is $24.0 billion, 4.8 times the third quarter’s short-term compute bill, by our arithmetic. The filing says it expects its use of short-term compute “to continue to increase in the near term” and that this will compress its operating margin. A post by @jukan05 on X walks through these lines.
Business Pill · Tokens per Watt
A short explainer on tokens per watt, a measure of compute efficiency. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Anthropic’s filing.
The key insight: Anthropic’s S-1/A ties its third-quarter operating loss mainly to $5.0 billion of short-term compute that costs more than its multi-year deals, and lists about $17.4 billion of minimum payments under short-term contracts at 30 September plus about $6.6 billion signed since: $24.0 billion, 4.8 times the third quarter’s short-term bill, by our arithmetic.
Most of Anthropic’s compute is bought 12 to 18 months ahead. The filing explains: “When customer demand or research needs exceed this long-term capacity, we procure short-term compute that currently costs significantly more than comparable compute procured under our multi-year commitments”.
It blames the third-quarter swing on that compute. Operating income of $974 million in the second quarter became an operating loss of $567 million, “primarily driven by $5.0 billion of compute under short-term commitments” and $2.0 billion of non-cash charges for its donation matching program. Our first read of the Q3 numbers covered the loss.
Adjusted Operating Margin fell to 15% from 19%, “primarily driven by the $5.0 billion of short-term compute noted above”. For the nine months the filing gives $6.5 billion of compute under short-term commitments.
Anthropic third-quarter 2026 compute and infrastructure expense and compute under short-term commitments, from its S-1/A of 10 November 2026. First-half and ex-short-term figures are our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
What Anthropic’s S-1 discloses about its expensive short term chip rentals (aimed at SpaceX)
– Most compute is secured 12 to 18 months in advance under multiyear contracts. When customer or research demand exceeds that capacity, the company buys short term compute, which “currently” costs “significantly more” than comparable compute under multiyear contracts.
– The scale was $5.0 billion in Q3 and $6.5 billion over the first nine months.
– Operating income of $970 million in Q2 turned into an operating loss of $570 million in Q3. The company attributes this to $5.0 billion of short term compute and $2.0 billion of noncash donation matching charges.
– Use of short term compute will keep increasing in the near term, and operating margin will be compressed as a result.
– As of the end of September, minimum payments under short term contracts (cancelable without penalty within one year, or with a remaining term of one year or less) were about $17.4 billion. About $6.6 billion more has been signed since October.
– Once Anthropic Direct, under which the company leases chips directly and hosts them in dedicated data centers, comes online, the company will replace the short term compute bought during demand surges with cheaper long term compute.
Interpretation:
– Excluding short term capacity, Q3 compute cost was $4.86 billion, below the Q2 total of $5.56 billion. Long term contracted capacity barely grew in Q3. In effect, the $5.4 billion increase in revenue was served with short term capacity.
– Revenue per dollar of compute fell from $2.08 in Q2 to $1.72 in Q3. The company also notes that this metric declined from the prior quarter.
– The $17.4 billion short term contract balance plus the $6.6 billion of new contracts comes to $24.0 billion, about one third of the $70.7 billion due over the next 12 months. More than the Q3 pace ($5.0 billion a quarter) is already under contract.
Question: Will Anthropic keep paying SpaceX a huge premium after March 2027?
Jukan (@jukan05) posted at 13:27 UTC on 10 November a summary of what Anthropic’s S-1 says about short-term compute. Its $5.0 billion third-quarter figure, $6.5 billion nine-month figure and $17.4 billion and $6.6 billion of short-term minimum payments match the filing; its $970 million and $570 million are rounded from the filing’s $974 million and $567 million. The ‘aimed at SpaceX’ framing and the interpretation section are the poster’s; the passages of the filing we read do not name the short-term suppliers.
Our Numbers
The $6.5 billion for nine months less $5.0 billion for the third quarter leaves about $1.5 billion for the first half. The third quarter alone was about 3.3 times the first half, by our arithmetic; the filing gives these two figures to one decimal place.
Third-quarter compute and infrastructure expense was $9,863 million on revenue of $16,956 million. The $5.0 billion is about 51% of that expense line and about 29% of revenue, by our arithmetic. The line rose by $4,305 million from the second quarter’s $5,558 million, so the short-term compute was larger than the whole quarter-on-quarter increase.
Without the $5.0 billion, third-quarter compute expense would have been about $4.9 billion, below the second quarter’s $5.6 billion, by our arithmetic. The second quarter may have included some of the first half’s $1.5 billion of short-term compute; the filing does not split it by quarter.
Where the $17.4 Billion Sits
The $17.4 billion is outside the filing’s contractual obligations table. The filing says the table “does not include short-term commitments that are cancelable without penalty within one year or amounts under agreements with a remaining contractual term of one year or less”. The $6.6 billion is for agreements “that are short-term in nature” entered into after 30 September.
The filing puts about $70.7 billion of commitments due in the 12 months after 30 September, and says its approximately $900.9 billion of committed spend includes short-term commitments. The $24.0 billion is equal to about 34% of the $70.7 billion, by our arithmetic. The filing does not say how much of the short-term total sits inside that 12-month figure, or how much of it is compute.
One line moved between filings. The 2 November S-1/A put commitments signed after 30 September at about $100.2 billion; the 10 November version says about $105.7 billion, $5.5 billion more, by our arithmetic. The short-term figures are the same in both. Our read of the obligations table and Anthropic’s cash against 12 months of bills have more.
The SpaceX Question
The @jukan05 post frames the short-term rentals as “aimed at SpaceX”. The passages we read do not say which providers supply the short-term compute. The filing describes the SpaceXAI Arrangements separately: up to $120.5 billion over terms into 2029, about $3.1 billion a month once all capacity is delivered, which Anthropic expects in December 2026.
After initial non-cancelable periods ending in January 2027 and March 2027, the filing says, “each agreement may be cancelled by either party upon 90 daysโ advance written notice”. The filing also says its own leased-chip model, Anthropic Direct, “allows us to backfill the short-term compute we procure during periods of high demand with more cost-effective, long-term compute as our dedicated infrastructure comes online”.
The Structural Read
As we read the filing, short-term compute is the overflow valve: the multi-year capacity is bought 12 to 18 months ahead, and when demand runs past it, Anthropic pays more to serve it now rather than turn it away.
As we read the $24.0 billion, the overflow is not a one-quarter event: the filing says it expects short-term use to keep rising in the near term, and it names Anthropic Direct as the way to backfill that compute with cheaper long-term capacity.
Anthropic, PBC, Form S-1/A, 10 November 2026
“We expect our use of short-term compute to continue to increase in the near term and to in turn compress our operating margin and Adjusted Operating Margin as a result”
Three Implications
FOR THE MARGIN Adjusted Operating Margin fell to 15% from 19% in the third quarter, which the filing attributes primarily to the $5.0 billion of short-term compute.
FOR THE COST LINE The $5.0 billion is about 51% of third-quarter compute and infrastructure expense of $9,863 million, by our arithmetic.
FOR THE IPO About $24.0 billion of minimum payments under short-term contracts sits alongside the filing’s approximately $70.7 billion of commitments due in the next 12 months; the filing does not say how much of it is compute.
The framework says of the token: “It is simultaneously the unit of cognition the model produces, the unit of compute the data center serves, the unit of price the lab charges, and the unit of value the enterprise extracts.”
As we read it, short-term compute shows the gap between two of those units: the price Anthropic charges per token does not change with how the compute behind it was bought, while the cost does. The framework was published in June and does not discuss the filing.
Minimum payments under short-term contracts from Anthropic’s S-1/A of 10 November 2026. The total is our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
The filing does not give the price premium on short-term compute, only that it “currently costs significantly more”. It does not name the short-term suppliers in the passages we read, and it does not say how much of the $17.4 billion and $6.6 billion is compute. The 3.3 times and the first-half figure come from rounded filing numbers. The short-term figures were also in the 2 November filing. Earlier coverage: the $70 to $78 price range, Tomasz Tunguz on compute costs and our Anthropic IPO map.
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Anthropic’s S-1/A ties its third-quarter operating loss mainly to $5.0 billion of short-term compute that costs more than its long-term deals. It also discloses about $24.0 billion of minimum payments under short-term contracts, about $17.4 billion at 30 September and about $6.6 billion signed since, and says it expects to use more short-term compute in the near term.
A note on sourcing. Figures and quotations are from Anthropic’s S-1/A filed with the SEC on 10 November 2026, with one comparison to its S-1/A of 2 November 2026. The piece was prompted by a post on X by @jukan05. Sums, differences, ratios and percentages are our arithmetic. Anthropic was not contacted for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
