Why Anthropic's Cloud Lifeline Could Become a Liability

Agentic AI , Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development

A rising tide lifts all boats, but what happens when the tide turns and the boats are all tethered together?

See Also: The Power of Three: Advancing Zero Trust Security

Last month's leak of Anthropic's IPO prospectus laid bare the frontier AI lab's growing dependence on hyperscalers Amazon and Google. San Francisco-based Anthropic routed 47% of its 2025 sales through the cloud marketplaces of Amazon and Google, up sharply from 32% in 2024 and 11% in 2023. By using Amazon, Google and Microsoft, Anthropic said it can tap their vast sales networks and reach customers.

But Anthropic paid only about $351 million back to Amazon and Google for $2.16 billion in cloud marketplace sales in 2025, suggesting the cloud providers collected 16 cents for every dollar of sales. The firm's cash collection is increasingly funneled through third parties such as Amazon and Google, which collected 60% of the $909 million in customer bills outstanding at the end of 2025, up from 42% in 2024.

But Amazon and Google do far more than just distribute Anthropic's products and collecting customer bills on the firm's behalf. The cloud hyperscalers are also big Anthropic investors, critical suppliers of computing power and direct rivals in AI. Google committed up to $40 billion in investments (including a $10 billion cash injection at a $350 billion valuation) and holds roughly a 14% direct equity stake (see: Anthropic Prospectus Reveals Surging Sales, Worsening Losses).

Amazon committed up to $25 billion on top of prior multibillion-dollar investments, and holds a mid-to-high teens ownership stake. Marking up the value of convertible debt stakes held by Google and Amazon contributed to Anthropic's reported $8 billion operating loss and $42 billion in overall accounting losses as it sets sail for an anticipated multi-trillion-dollar IPO.

Anthropic, for its part, has made enormous commitments to buy computing capacity. At the end of 2025, Anthropic had $54.6 billion in non-cancellable hosting and computing commitments. By early 2026, Anthropic's total long-term commitments exceeded $417 billion, covering 3.5 gigawatts of dedicated computing capacity.

Some of that spend is earmarked for Anthropic's investors, with the company committing more than $100 billion to AWS over 10 years, using Amazon's custom Trainium chips. Long-term compute and infrastructure commitments with its cloud partners exceed hundreds of billions of dollars as Claude scales globally. Anthropic also faces direct competition from Google in the AI assistant market.

Both companies enjoyed impressive share growth in the first half of 2026, with Anthropic's Claude commanding 10.3% of the market as of May, up from just 3% in December, according to Sensor Tower's State of AI Report. Google Gemini enjoyed a more modest share increase to 27.7% in May, up from 26.7% in December.

This can be seen as Google diversifying its bets, trying to win with Gemini while also making sure they have a seat at the table if Claude ultimately gains more traction. Having Anthropic grow on Google's infrastructure, chips and cloud services could make sense even if the firms compete at the model layer. If Claude keeps gaining share, Google stands to benefit even if Gemini continues to be a direct competitor.

For Anthropic, the question is more complex, and even the company's own prospectus said relying on a limited number of partners "creates complex dynamics that could give rise to conflicts of interest." Having one's investors and suppliers be one and the same raises questions around how much the latter is informed by the former.

Is Anthropic spending $100 billion with AWS because it is objectively the superior option for computing, or is this a term of Amazon's investment? Does Anthropic have the flexibility to shift computing investing away from Amazon and Google in coming years if better options emerge, or is Anthropic locked in regardless of how the market landscape changes?

How will Anthropic's competitive position be affected if rivals can obtain faster, cheaper or better computing and chips while Anthropic has to direct part of its spending to investors and equity holders? And what type of road map visibility around product and R&D spend are Anthropic and Google willing to offer one another with Claude and Gemini competing directly in the model space?

Given how diversified Amazon and Google's businesses are, investing heavily in Anthropic sets both companies up for success and gets the companies guaranteed compute revenue for years to come no matter which AI model ultimately dominates the market.

But Anthropic faces a riskier proposition. Being bankrolled by Amazon and Google allows the company to run huge losses while pursuing market share growth, but it could create problems if either company changes direction or pushes harder on its own competing products.

Those relationships have helped Anthropic stay afloat in a rising market. But those same lifelines could become anchor chains when the waters turn rough.