Anthropic's cloud partnerships drive revenue but raise costs and risks

Cloud partnerships generated 48% of Anthropic's revenue in the first half of 2026, up from 11% in 2023, while related fees surged to $3.2 billion. Anthropic relies on Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to sell its Claude AI models through their cloud platforms, with these providers billing customers and keeping a fee. Sales hit $11.6 billion in the second quarter with a $974 million operating profit, but partnership costs jumped from $120 million to $3.2 billion year-over-year. The IPO filing warns of risks, including cloud providers' visibility into pricing, potential favoritism of their own AI models, and antitrust scrutiny. Anthropic has committed to spend at least $114.5 billion with Google, $110 billion with Amazon, and $44.9 billion with Microsoft through 2033-2036.