Anthropic strikes $3.4 billion deal for gas generators to power its AI data centers

Anthropic has agreed to pay about $3.4 billion to secure 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of gas generators that will power its artificial intelligence data centers. The news was reported by the Financial Times this Sunday (November 8), citing a person familiar with the matter, and picked up by Reuters. According to the newspaper, it is the largest single purchase of power-generation equipment ever made by an AI lab.

The deal was closed in late September with OnePWR Solutions, a supplier based in San Antonio, Texas, and covers the heavy-duty Caterpillar generators as well as the engineering and construction capacity needed to install them. Anthropic did not buy OnePWR, and none of the supplier's employees moved to the AI company.

Orders placed two years ago

The generators are not new orders: OnePWR had ordered the units from Caterpillar about two years ago but needed financing to complete the purchase. Anthropic initially planned only to become a OnePWR customer, buying electricity from the company — and ended up taking over the orders directly. That secured access to equipment ordered before prices surged, with deliveries in the near term and over the next two years.

An independent clue backs the report: investment bank Piper Sandler lists a $3.4 billion sale of OnePWR's power-generation platform to an unidentified AI lab in September. The bank acted as OnePWR's exclusive financial adviser on the deal.

Why an AI lab buys gas generators

The race for energy has become one of the main bottlenecks in the expansion of AI. Anthropic itself acknowledges the problem in its IPO paperwork: in the amended Form S-1 filed on November 2, the company says some of its planned facilities rely on dedicated on-site natural gas generation, exposing it to fuel price and supply risks. The company has also said it intends to spend more than $895 billion on computing and infrastructure through 2045.

The move comes as resistance to building data centers grows in the United States: voters approved 40 of 41 ballot measures to restrict new projects. Buying its own gas generators is a way to reduce dependence on the local grid. The Financial Times contrasts the deal with xAI's purchase of mobile gas turbines for about $2 billion earlier this year.

What has not been confirmed yet

Neither Anthropic nor OnePWR commented on the report to the Financial Times, and Reuters said it could not immediately verify the information independently. The newspaper also did not say where the generators will be installed, which data centers they will serve, or how the $3.4 billion splits between equipment and installation. Until there is official confirmation, the deal should be treated as a sourced report — not as a fact confirmed by the companies.

Also on Geekiki: Anthropic IPO: investors press for valuation cut to $1.5 trillion; US voters slow AI data centers: 40 of 41 measures restrict new projects; Judge keeps NAACP lawsuit against xAI over Colossus gas turbines.

Image credit: illustrative photo of a Caterpillar (Olympian) generator set, photographed by Gregsedits and shared on Wikimedia Commons under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The photo does not show the units in the deal, which are gas-fired generators — it illustrates the type of generation equipment involved.

Sources

Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on cross-checking public posts and internet sources, and reviewed against the original sources cited. We recommend consulting the original sources to verify the details.

By Muse