Key facts
- Anthropic is buying Caterpillar generators able to produce up to 1.7 gigawatts of electricity, per the FT report.
- OnePWR ordered the turbines a couple of years ago but could not secure financing, per the report.
- Anthropic had planned to buy the turbines from OnePWR but went directly to Caterpillar, per the report.
- Anthropic said in its May S-1 filing it pays xAI $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for computing power.
- Anthropic stated in the filing it expects to enter into additional similar services contracts for rented computing power.
- The backlog for natural gas turbines stretches into the early 2030s, and grid connection queues can be as long, per the report.
Anthropic is spending $3.4 billion on natural gas turbines made by Caterpillar, according to a Financial Times report cited in a November 9, 2026 account. The generators can produce up to 1.7 gigawatts of electricity. The AI company, which the report says is planning to go public this year, has generally avoided buying physical infrastructure.
The purchase involves equipment that supplier OnePWR had ordered a couple of years earlier but could not find financing to complete, according to the report. Anthropic had planned to buy the turbines from OnePWR but instead went directly to Caterpillar, the manufacturer. The report does not say why OnePWR could not secure financing despite Anthropic's apparent interest as a customer.
Anthropic has preferred to rent rather than buy. It disclosed in its S-1 filing in May that it pays SpaceX subsidiary xAI $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 to use xAI's computing power, and stated in the filing: "We expect to enter into additional similar services contracts." The report links the turbine purchase to tightening power supply: the backlog for natural gas turbines stretches into the early 2030s, and queues to connect to the electrical grid can be just as long.
Other technology companies have also moved to secure gas-fired power. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have all announced plans to build natural gas power plants to supply their data centers on site rather than drawing from the public grid, according to the report. It said US data centers alone could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035 if the buildout proceeds as planned, and that one analyst expects prices could more than triple by the end of the decade in some markets.