Anthropic’s expenses grew more than its revenues in the third quarter, the company said in an update to its S-1 pre-IPO filing on Monday, at a time when investors are scrutinising the economics of the highly compute-intensive AI industry.

The company disclosed directly for the first time that it has future spending commitments of $895.4 billion (£670bn) in purchase commitments and lease agreements for computing power and infrastructure, of which $447.5bn is expected to be incurred before the end of 2030.

Expensive short-term computing contracts taken on to meet demand took a tool on its operating margin in the third quarter, the company said.

Soaring costs

Anthropic has committed to spending more than $3bn per month with SpaceX alone, reportedly accounting for more than one-third of SpaceX’s revenues in the third quarter.

In the filing, it said its revenue reached $17bn in the third quarter, up 50 percent from the previous quarter, a markedly slower rate of growth than the 144 percent in the second quarter.

Its spending on chips, power and other infrastructure jumped 77 percent from $5.6bn to $9.9bn, with data centre costs rising to 58 percent of revenue in the third quarter from 48 percent in the second.

The company’s net loss fell to $23.29bn from $66bn in the previous quarter, while it reported an operating loss of $567m in the third quarter, from an operating profit of $974m in the previous quarter, primarily due to an additional $4.3bn in computing costs.

Anthropic is expected to begin marketing its shares to potential investors next week, with a market value that could range from $1.5tn to $2tn.