We learned earlier this month that Google and Anthropic had inked a deal that would grant the creator of the Claude AI models access to cloud servers and chips. Today, The Information reported that Anthropic has agreed to pay a staggering $200 billion to Google over the next five years.
Contracts like this, or Anthropic’s other recent multi-billion dollar arrangement with Amazon, now account for a ludicrous amount of money promised to some of the world’s largest tech companies. The Information claims that deals with Anthropic and OpenAI are responsible for a revenue backlog of $2 trillion across Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. These cloud service providers have been early investors in the AI boom, gambling that the startups’ need for their resources as they grow would yield lucrative dividends. So far, they’ve been correct. Previous projections estimated that server costs in 2026 could reach $45 billion for OpenAI and $20 billion for Anthropic.
Similar moves have also happened at chipmakers like NVIDIA, which has made its own investments into OpenAI. These expensive circular deals are part of what’s driving the current AI boom, but they aren’t exactly a sustainable business practice. Data centers put a strain on limited resources and RAM shortages aren’t expected to stop bringing prices up and sales down for related gadgets any time soon.
