Anthropic bought $3.4 billion in gas turbines this fall. The deal skips a wait that stretches into the early 2030s12. Its IPO roadshow opens the same week6.
Caterpillar built the turbines. OnePWR Solutions ordered them two years ago, before it ran out of money to pay for them3. Anthropic took over the order instead of waiting its turn.
A Six-Year Wait, Skipped in One Check
The generators can produce 1.7 gigawatts of electricity12. That capacity could run a small city. Anthropic closed the deal in late September3.
OnePWR sits in San Antonio. It builds and installs power equipment for sale, and it placed the Caterpillar order on its own books3.
Renting had always been Anthropic's pattern, until this deal. "Historically, Anthropic has preferred to rent rather than buy," TechCrunch reported1. The company changed course because the alternative was waiting.
Power is scarce. Turbine orders now stretch past 2030, and grid connection queues run just as long1. By 2035, U.S. data centers could burn more natural gas than Germany and Japan burn combined.
Every major AI buyer feels the same scarcity. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have each announced plans to build their own gas plants1. Each one wants power under its own control.
Markets noticed fast. Shares climbed 5.8 percent on Nov. 9, the day after Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported the deal, trading near $591 before easing back8.
Shay Boloor@StockSavvyShayAnthropic reportedly committed $3.4B for 1.7 GW of gas generators by taking over orders OnePWR placed with $CAT about two years ago which tells you how scarce power equipment has become.
And the implications go well beyond Caterpillar pointing to demand for $GEV turbines and… https://t.co/Vb49DMU9C4 pic.twitter.com/SUHqiU1qg7
The Bill Comes Due the Same Week
Anthropic filed its S-1 on Oct. 266. SEC rules force a 15-day wait after that filing before the roadshow can begin10.
Investor meetings open the week of Nov. 9, and pricing could land as early as Nov. 13610. Shares would then list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the 22 underwriters taking the deal to market.
The revised filing shows why Anthropic needs the cash a public listing brings. Third-quarter revenue reached $17 billion, up 1,127 percent from a year earlier4. Nine-month revenue hit $33.24 billion.
Anthropic's revenue growth slows to 47% a quarter, from 144% last quarter
Quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, Anthropic's revised S-1, Q1 to Q3 2026
Each column is one 2026 quarter's growth over the quarter before it; the third bar is the shortest of the three.
Source: CNBC [4]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Q1 | 132% |
| Q2 | 144% |
| Q3 | 47% |
Growth is slowing even as the dollar total climbs. Quarterly revenue grew 132 percent in the first quarter, then 144 percent in the second4. It slowed to just 47 percent in the third. Anthropic posted a $23.29 billion net loss for the quarter, and $104 billion for the nine months.
Most of that loss is a paper charge tied to convertible notes4. Cash itself stayed in the bank. The filing lists $895.4 billion in compute and infrastructure deals. $69.8 billion of that comes due within 12 months6.
The Case For: A Business That Works
Gil Luria disputed the claim that Anthropic wastes its cash. He leads technology research at DA Davidson. "The anti-AI movement has described [Anthropic] as a business that destroys value with every … AI query, and that's just not true," Luria said5.
His case rests on one number. Anthropic posted an adjusted operating margin of 10 percent for the six months ended June 305. The adjusted figure strips out stock pay and the paper losses tied to convertible notes.
Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, read the same filing and came away steadier than he expected. "I was not wowed by that, but I was pleasantly surprised – or at least modestly pleasantly surprised," Meeks told CNBC5.
Luria also pointed to Anthropic's legal form. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation, built to weigh mission against profit5.
The Case Against: A Gap the Margin Misses
Michael Burry built his name shorting the 2008 housing market. He read Anthropic's filing in late October and reached a sharper verdict.
"While some may see all the circularity and connectedness as security on the way up, and that is not wrong, it does leave the entire organism catastrophically vulnerable either on a pause or on the way down," Burry wrote7.
Burry counted Anthropic's compute commitments at roughly 12 times its current sales7. Measured against Anthropic's own pace, the gap looks just as wide4. Commitments total $895.4 billion. Revenue runs at $68 billion a year, four times its $17 billion third quarter.
Anthropic's $895 billion in commitments runs about 13 times its $68 billion revenue pace
Compute and infrastructure commitments versus revenue run rate, annualized from Q3 2026, in billions of dollars
The top bar is every dollar Anthropic has committed to compute and infrastructure; the bottom bar is its revenue pace, its third quarter times four.
The commitments run through 2045; the revenue pace stretches a single quarter across a full year.
Sources: CNBC [4]; Yahoo Finance [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Compute and infrastructure deals | $895.4B |
| Revenue pace, Q3 annualized | $68B |
Burry traced where the money loops back. Amazon and Alphabet supplied roughly $41 billion of the $141 billion Anthropic has raised7. Much of that cash returns to them as compute purchases. The two hyperscalers also bill and collect 48 percent of Anthropic's revenue through their own cloud marketplaces.
Luria's margin is real, and so is Burry's count. A healthy margin today says little about tomorrow's sales. The turbine deal answers one shortage: power. It leaves the bigger one, revenue against promise, for investors to price.
What to do
Read Anthropic's S-1 risk section before the roadshow prices shares. Compare the $895.4 billion in commitments against the $69.8 billion due within a year. Ask your own advisor how that gap gets funded if revenue growth keeps slowing.
Watch Caterpillar, GE Vernova and Bloom Energy alongside Anthropic. The turbine order already moved Caterpillar's stock once. Shay Boloor flagged the same reach toward other equipment makers the day the deal became public9.
By the numbers
- $3.4 billion: Anthropic's payment for 1.7 gigawatts of Caterpillar generators, taking over orders OnePWR placed two years earlier12.
- Early 2030s: How far Caterpillar's turbine backlog now stretches, even after this deal1.
- $17 billion: Third-quarter 2026 revenue, up 1,127 percent year over year4.
- 47 percent: Anthropic's revenue growth rate from the second to the third quarter, down from 144 percent the quarter before4.
- $895.4 billion: Anthropic's total compute and infrastructure commitments in its revised S-1, with $69.8 billion due within 12 months46.
- 10 percent: Anthropic's adjusted operating margin for the six months ended June 30. Gil Luria cites it as proof the business works5.
- 12 times: Michael Burry's count of Anthropic's compute commitments against its current sales7.
- 5.8 percent: Caterpillar's stock gain on Nov. 9, the day after the turbine deal became public8.
What to watch
Watch the roadshow's price talk once meetings start the week of Nov. 9610. A price near the low end of recent chatter would tell public investors Burry's math carries more weight than Luria's margin.
Caterpillar's next earnings call should show how much of its backlog now belongs to AI buyers instead of utilities. A rival turbine deal from Google, Amazon, Microsoft or Meta could land before Anthropic's shares even open for trading1.
Sources
- Tim De Chant, "Anthropic joins AI's natural gas frenzy, buys $3.4B worth of turbines," TechCrunch, Nov. 9, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/09/anthropic-joins-ais-natural-gas-frenzy-buys-3-4b-worth-of-turbines/
- Tom's Hardware Staff, "Anthropic skips six-year waitlist with massive $3.4 billion gas turbine generator deal," Tom's Hardware, Nov. 9, 2026, https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/anthropic-skips-six-year-waitlist-with-massive-usd3-4-billion-gas-turbine-generator-deal-firm-takes-over-onepwrs-orders-secures-1-7gw-of-capacity-to-power-ai-data-centers
- Alina Maria Stan, "Anthropic buys $3.4bn of gas generators for its data centres, FT reports," The Next Web, Nov. 8, 2026, https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-3-4bn-gas-generators-onepwr-ft
- Ashley Capoot, "Anthropic reports $17 billion in Q3 revenue, purchase commitments of $895.4 billion in revised S-1," CNBC, Nov. 2, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/02/anthropic-ant-s-1-quarter-financials.html
- Tobias Burns, "Anthropic IPO filing: What investors like and key risks," CNBC, Oct. 26, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/26/anthropic-ipo-filing-investor-reaction.html
- Yahoo Finance, "Everything you need to know ahead of Anthropic's IPO," Yahoo Finance, Nov. 9, 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/article/anthropic-ipo-what-we-know-143321078.html
- Theron Mohamed, "'Big Short' investor Michael Burry says Anthropic's IPO filing shows the AI industry is 'catastrophically vulnerable'," Yahoo Finance, Oct. 28, 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/anthropics-ipo-filing-talk-wall-113534639.html
- Investing.com, "Caterpillar stock: Support and resistance levels after 5.8% rebound," Investing.com, Nov. 9, 2026, https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/caterpillar-stock-support-and-resistance-levels-after-58-rebound-93CH-5012776
- Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay), post on X, Nov. 8, 2026, https://x.com/StockSavvyShay/status/2119448134665593136
- unusual_whales (@unusual_whales), post on X, Nov. 8, 2026, https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/2119560318322090446
