Computing power has become a scarce and urgent resource for AI companies. Anthropic just agreed to spend $10 billion to get it.
The deal is with Volta Infra Holdings, an Nvidia-backed cloud startup founded in January.
The deal spans six years. Volta and its partner Bitdeer Technologies Group, a bitcoin-mining company that operates data centers, will deliver the capacity from a site in Norway.
On Tuesday, Volta said it had signed the deal but did not name the AI lab. CEO Ricard Boada declined to identify the customer.
Neither Anthropic nor Bitdeer would comment, but people close to the deal say the buyer is Anthropic. Those people asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
The Norway site will supply 133 megawatts and run on Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin processors.
Bitdeer's stock jumped almost 10% before markets opened Tuesday.
Volta separately announced it had raised $300 million from venture investors.
The financing round puts the startup's valuation at $2.4 billion.
Anthropic has made other infrastructure bets too.
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It already has computing agreements with Elon Musk's SpaceX, chipmaker AMD, and Akamai Technologies, and it has held talks about renting capacity inside Meta's data centers.
The company raised $65 billion from investors earlier this year and is weighing a U.S. stock-market debut as soon as this year. If Anthropic goes public, investors would get a front-row seat to all this deal-making.
Anthropic and rival OpenAI both rely on a mix of big tech firms and newer cloud startups for the capacity that powers advanced AI and supports wider adoption.
That mix keeps the door open for newcomers with access to power and chips, which is why a startup barely a few months old can land a deal this size.
Executives who previously worked at Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. launched Volta in January. It rents out AI infrastructure and helps clients arrange financing for expensive chips.
Bitdeer, Volta's partner on the contract, is a crypto-mining company with data-center operations. Bitdeer is one of many miners making that same move. Its July 21 operational update says it plans to convert some crypto facilities in Texas, Tennessee, and Washington state.
OpenAI's Sam Altman has said he expects spending on AI physical infrastructure to reach trillions. The projects behind that forecast are enormous.
OpenAI is planning a data center in Georgia that could cost more than $30 billion.
The scale extends to Ohio, where Nvidia has been in talks to support OpenAI in renting a $500 billion hub.
SoftBank would oversee the 10-gigawatt project.
Anthropic has also made a series of infrastructure bets beyond Volta, including agreements with SpaceX, AMD, and Akamai, and discussions with Meta about data center capacity. OpenAI is pursuing similarly large projects, from the Georgia data center to the Ohio hub that SoftBank would supervise.
Critics have warned that some of the financing in these AI deals is circular.
That means the same companies keep doing business with one another, so if AI demand falls short, losses could spread fast.
"The projects are real, and the payments are real," Volta CEO Ricard Boada said. The question is what happens if the AI boom slows down.
So what does this mean for your portfolio?
The AI boom has turned into a physical build-out of power plants, chips, and giant data centers, and the money trail now runs through cloud startups and bitcoin miners, not just the famous AI labs.
For investors, the upside is plain to see. The harder part is sizing up a web that has so many companies paying each other.
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