$10B Computing Deal: Antropic Partners With Nvidia-Backed Volta

Antropic, an AI lab that raised $65 billion from investors earlier this year, has agreed to spend $10 billion on computing power over six years. The deal is with Volta Infra Holdings, a cloud startup backed by Nvidia, which will deliver the capacity from a site in Norway.

The 133-megawatt facility will run on Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin processors and is part of a trend towards AI companies building out their own infrastructure. OpenAI has also been pursuing large-scale projects, including a data center in Georgia that could cost more than $30 billion.

Volta CEO Ricard Boada noted that the projects are real and the payments are real, but critics have warned about the potential for circular financing, where companies keep doing business with each other and losses can spread quickly if demand falls short.