Anthropic Buys $3.4B Natural Gas Turbines Amid AI Power Crunch

Anthropic has entered the AI industry’s intensifying scramble for electricity by committing $3.4 billion to purchase natural gas turbines, a notable departure from its traditional reliance on leased infrastructure. The AI company plans to acquire Caterpillar generators that equipment supplier OnePWR had originally ordered, according to the Financial Times. The turbines can produce as much as 1.7 gigawatts of electricity, giving Anthropic a larger role in securing power for future compute operations. The move highlights how severe the AI power shortage has become. Demand for compute has outpaced available grid capacity, and lead times for natural gas turbines now stretch into the early 2030s. Interconnection queues for grid access can also delay projects for years. Anthropic, which has historically preferred to rent rather than build, appears to have turned to direct energy procurement to avoid being squeezed by limited resources. The transaction also seems strategic. OnePWR had been unable to secure financing to complete the original turbine purchase. Rather than buying through the intermediary, Anthropic is reported to have dealt directly with Caterpillar, limiting the chance that rival buyers could acquire the capacity instead. The investment sits alongside Anthropic’s ongoing dependence on large-scale compute agreements. In a May filing, the company disclosed that it is paying $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for contracted computing power and indicated that additional similar arrangements are possible. However, rising training and inference demands have made energy access a more urgent bottleneck. Anthropic’s decision mirrors a broader pattern among leading AI and cloud companies. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have all announced plans to build large natural gas power plants for their data centers, reducing reliance on public utilities. The surge in demand for turbines and gas infrastructure has revived momentum in natural gas supply chains, particularly fracking, and raised concerns about price exposure. By 2035, U.S. data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined, according to estimates cited in the reporting. That shift carries long-term financial risk. Analysts warn that natural gas prices could rise sharply by the end of the decade, potentially increasing operating costs for companies that have invested heavily in gas-fired generation. For Anthropic, the turbine purchase underscores both the urgency of scaling compute capacity and the growing importance of energy as a strategic constraint in the AI race.