AMD and Anthropic's $20B compute deal comes with $5B stock pledge

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that hyperscalers are placing limits on the AI compute capacity available to Anthropic, and the report brought worrying details about Anthropic's ties with AMD to light.

One of the more creative ways the Claude developer has worked around those restrictions is a commitment to buy billions of dollars of AMD's AI compute services, paired with AMD's pledge to purchase billions of dollars of Anthropic stock.

There is a circular quality to the arrangement: Anthropic's IPO prospectus, which seeks a generous valuation, shows AMD committing up to $5 billion to buy Anthropic stock in the same filing where Anthropic agrees to take on more than $20 billion of AI compute services from AMD.

Service providers ordinarily get paid for their work; they do not typically channel that payment back into the client's shares. AMD, however, described the arrangement as a "strategic partnership" meant to lock in a leading customer.

Put more bluntly, a skeptic could characterize the two deals as an effective rebate delivered through share buybacks.

For reasons that are unclear, the unusual deal extends to as much as two gigawatts of AMD's Instinct MI450 chips, with delivery beginning in the first half of 2027. "We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Anthropic," AMD's CEO said.

That comment was certainly one way to describe a $5 billion investment commitment directed back into AMD's customer.

Anthropic pledges $20B for compute as AMD pledges $5B back

The initial $5 billion "strategic partnership" was announced in July, months before the public could read the September IPO prospectus and see that Anthropic had committed to more than $20 billion of AMD's AI compute capacity.

AMD's latest quarterly report discloses "investment commitments of up to $5.0 billion, subject to certain contingencies, which are expected to be made through fiscal year 2028."

Notably missing from that filing was Anthropic, even though the $5 billion figure lines up precisely with AMD's investment commitment in the company.

"Access to compute is central to keeping Claude at the frontier and meeting demand from our customers," Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown said in July.

Anthropic lost money at a striking rate in 2025, posting an operating loss of more than $8 billion on revenue of just $4.6 billion. Despite those losses, AMD's investment will certainly help maintain an upbeat valuation for Anthropic.