Anthropic has announced a landmark partnership with Google and Broadcom to secure multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU compute capacity, scheduled to come online starting in 2027. This commitment marks the company's most significant to date, as revenue growth accelerates to a $30 billion annual run rate from $9 billion at the end of 2025.
The scale of AI compute demand now directly competes with bitcoin mining for scarce resources such as grid connections, land permits, cooling infrastructure, and affordable electricity. A recent agreement with Google and Broadcom will provide multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity to train and serve frontier Claude models, starting in 2027. Estimates suggest bitcoin mining consumes approximately 13 to 25 gigawatts of continuous power globally, depending on hardware efficiency.
Anthropic's acquisition of multiple gigawatts from a single deal, in addition to existing capacity across various platforms, highlights AI's rapid emergence as a peer-level competitor for the same energy infrastructure that miners rely on. Other companies, such as OpenAI, are also building extensive infrastructure portfolios, contributing to the aggregate AI compute buildout, which now represents one of the largest sources of new electricity demand in the United States.
This development coincides with bitcoin miners deciding whether to mine bitcoin or rent their infrastructure to AI companies, with an increasing number opting for the latter. Core Scientific, Iris Energy, and Hut 8 have already expanded their AI and high-performance computing revenue, while Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, and Genius Group have disclosed selling over 19,000 BTC from their treasuries, indicating that mining economics alone are not sustaining operations at current prices and difficulty levels.
The revenue earned by a bitcoin miner operating a gigawatt of capacity fluctuates with bitcoin's price and network difficulty, whereas renting the same gigawatt to an AI company yields a contracted rate with predictable cash flows. At current prices and difficulty levels, the AI rental often proves more profitable.
The rapid expansion is reflected in revenue numbers, with Anthropic reporting that the number of business customers spending over $1 million annually on Claude has doubled from 500 to over 1,000 in less than two months. While this does not signify the demise of bitcoin mining, the network's hashrate continues to reach record levels above 1 zetahash per second.
The miners that survive the current cycle may evolve to resemble infrastructure companies that happen to mine bitcoin on the side, while renting their primary asset, affordable power at scale, to the rapidly growing AI industry.