AI’s power crunch has become so acute that Anthropic, a company that has generally avoided buying physical infrastructure, is spending $3.4 billion on natural gas turbines. 

The AI company, which is planning to go public this year, is buying Caterpillar generators that equipment supplier OnePWR had originally ordered, according to a Financial Times report. The generators are capable of producing up to 1.7 gigawatts of electricity. 

Historically, Anthropic has preferred to rent rather than buy. The company disclosed in its S-1 filing in May that it is paying SpaceX subsidiary xAI $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 to use xAI’s computing power.

“We expect to enter into additional similar services contracts,” Anthropic stated in the filing, meaning more deals to rent computing power.

But as demand for compute ramps up, the market for power has also grown increasingly uncertain, which may have forced its hand. The backlog for natural gas turbines stretches into the early 2030s, and queues to connect to the electrical grid can be just as long.

Anthropic’s purchase looks like a last resort.