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TM Tobias Mann On The Register Kettle

“What has gotten missed somewhat in the more rosy interpretations of the S-1 is that they also are signed up to have to repay upwards of eight hundred billion dollars and counting of compute commitments out through the next two decades or so.”

The Register Kettle · November 2026

“What has gotten missed somewhat in the more rosy interpretations of the S-1 is that they also are signed up to have to repay upwards of eight hundred billion dollars and counting of compute commitments out through the next two decades or so.” — Tobias Mann, The Register Kettle

Context

Tobias had just noted that, for the first time, Anthropic's revenue outpaced its compute expense two to one, which has made some observers more confident. This is his counterpoint about the long-term obligations disclosed in the filing.

Listen to the episode → More from Tobias Mann →

Transcript

The Register Kettle Around 06:42 into the episode
Brandon Vigliarolo

say it was one two point one point two billion, I think, for what, the first half of the year or or same time last year or something like that. With so so it's gone down. Yeah.

Tom Claburn

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's what it's what they're Yes. going they're they're trying to go out at two trillion now? Is that the that that the the the number?

Tobias Mann

Well, the number depends, on whether they're they're going to be able to sustain this. I was gonna mention for the first time ever, their revenues outpaced their compute expenses two to one. this has never been true in the the company's history, and it's one of the reasons that people are feeling more confident about this. The the issue that really comes from all of this is that And and what has gotten missed somewhat in in the more rosy interpretations of the S one is that they also are signed up to have to repay upwards of eight hundred billion dollars and counting of Right. compute commitments out through the next two decades or so.

Brandon Vigliarolo

Yeah, you outlined in your story just a whole host of people they owed billions of dollars to for compute. you know, and you like you said, you know, it would be great. That sixteen point three billion in profit would be great if those compute costs were gonna hold steady, right? But they're not…

Tom Claburn

Yeah. yeah, and and the big there's a big question mark in terms of, you know, what the technology does for inference costs, because I think a lot of this is betting on, you know, you'll be able to get the the same hardware that is much more efficient down the road and Mm-hmm. maybe not drop your…

Tobias Mann

Per token, yeah.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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