Anthropic and OpenAI shift toward smaller data center deals
Both companies are seeking smaller contracts for AI computing capacity, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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Anthropic and OpenAI are looking to strike smaller data center deals to add computing capacity, according to CNBC, which cited people familiar with the matter.
The shift marks a departure from the scale of recent commitments. Anthropic signed a deal worth about $45 billion over six years with Nscale for roughly 460 megawatts of capacity at a West Virginia data center due online by the end of 2027, CNBC reported. In November 2025 the company unveiled a $50 billion U.S. build-out with GPU cloud partner Fluidstack, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York, a project CNBC described as part of Anthropic's effort to compete with OpenAI's $1.4 trillion build-out.
Anthropic has kept signing large contracts through the year. In August it agreed to a $9 billion, 20-year deal with bitcoin miner Riot Platforms for 191 megawatts at Riot's Rockdale, Texas campus, CNBC reported. By one count from Value Add Pulse, Anthropic had signed five multibillion-dollar compute deals in 2026, including agreements with AWS, Fluidstack, Nscale, SpaceX and Lambda, worth more than $275 billion combined. Value Add Pulse also reported that OpenAI has separately committed to roughly 2 gigawatts of Trainium chip capacity through AWS starting in 2027.
The move toward smaller contracts points to a preference for flexibility over the kind of mega-projects that have defined the buildout race so far, likely a response to energy constraints and pressure to use capital more efficiently as the pace of frontier model development slows. It reads as pragmatism rather than a retreat from ambition, and signals neither a breakthrough nor a setback in the broader contest over computing capacity.