Anthropic's Quarterly Revenue Reaches $17 Billion as It Swings to an Operating Loss

The first version of the filing, released on October 26, did not include third-quarter results. Earlier in October, the Financial Times reported that Anthropic had told prospective investors its quarterly revenue had reached $16.8 billion.

Growth Slows as Costs Climb

Revenue grew about 47 percent from the second quarter, down from about 144 percent the quarter before, according to SiliconANGLE and Fortune. Fortune reported second-quarter revenue of $11.6 billion and year-earlier revenue of $1.4 billion. The filing also shows about $600 million less revenue because of price cuts and contractual discounts, Fortune said.

Total operating expenses rose to $17.5 billion from $10.6 billion in the second quarter. Fortune and several other outlets put the operating loss at $567 million, after a $974 million operating profit in the second quarter. SiliconANGLE reported a $536 million operating loss. The difference could not be reconciled from the reports available.

Two items drove much of the swing. SiliconANGLE reported a $5 billion charge for computing hardware bought at a premium because demand ran ahead of expectations. Anthropic usually books capacity 12 to 18 months in advance, and the filing says short-term compute costs significantly more than multi-year commitments. The company also recorded a $2 billion non-cash charge tied to its employee donation-matching programme.

Excluding stock-based compensation and charitable contributions, adjusted operating income rose by about $300 million from the prior quarter to $2.5 billion, according to SiliconANGLE. Fortune reported that the adjusted operating margin fell to 15 percent from 19 percent. The net loss for the quarter was $23.3 billion, mostly from an accounting charge linked to the rising value of the company's convertible notes, Fortune said.

A Very Large Compute Bill

The filing lists about $895.4 billion in outstanding infrastructure commitments as of September 30. SiliconANGLE reported that leases with Google and Broadcom, which agreed in April to supply several gigawatts of TPU-based capacity, make up nearly a third of that total. Anthropic also has computing agreements with Amazon, Oracle and SpaceX, each worth more than $100 billion. Purchase commitments rose from $55 billion at the end of 2025 to about $314 billion, as the company moves from renting capacity to building its own data centres. Fortune reported liquidity of $146.6 billion, including cash, short-term investments and an available credit line.

The amended filing also updates Anthropic's risk disclosures. The company says it expects its models to soon be able to accelerate AI development "dramatically". It is considering whether "to require human review and approval of certain" research tasks that its models now carry out automatically, SiliconANGLE reported.

What It Means for the IPO

Anthropic has not said how much it plans to raise. Bloomberg reported that the company hopes to raise at least the $86.2 billion SpaceX raised in its listing earlier this year. Reuters reported a target valuation of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.

For investors, the filing shows a business whose revenue is growing faster than almost any software company before it, but which depends on very large, long-dated compute contracts. It also shows that buying capacity at short notice can quickly erase quarterly profits. Gulf capital is part of the picture: Abu Dhabi's MGX co-led Anthropic's $30 billion funding round in February, CNBC has reported.