Anthropic has signed a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, a cloud provider backed by Nvidia, according to a report by CNBC-TV18. The agreement covers computing capacity for Anthropic's Claude AI models.

Lambda is among the Nvidia-backed AI cloud companies that lease out graphics processing unit (GPU) capacity to developers. Anthropic, the developer of the Claude family of AI models, relies on large-scale cloud infrastructure to train and run its systems.

The deal is the latest in a series of large-scale, multi-year compute commitments by leading AI developers as demand for training and inference capacity continues to outpace available supply of high-end GPUs. Neocloud providers such as Lambda, CoreWeave and Crusoe have positioned themselves as alternatives to hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud by offering GPU capacity sourced heavily from Nvidia. Anthropic has previously disclosed compute agreements with Google Cloud and AWS, the latter a multibillion-dollar arrangement tied in part to investments in Anthropic. Deals of this scale tie up future revenue for AI labs and shift financing risk onto cloud providers, who typically fund GPU purchases with debt backed by long-term customer contracts.

The report also said that Nvidia has paused a financing initiative aimed at AI cloud companies. Nvidia has previously invested in Lambda and other GPU cloud providers through vehicles such as its NVentures arm and the Nvidia Inference Microservices-affiliated partner ecosystem, and such backing has been a key enabler of neocloud growth.

What to watch next: whether the reported pause in Nvidia's financing initiative affects Lambda's ability to fund GPU purchases, and how Anthropic's commitments to Lambda fit alongside its existing cloud agreements.

Source: CNNBC-TV18