Anthropic has announced a partnership with Google and Broadcom to develop multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU compute capacity, expected to be operational starting in 2027. This commitment is the company's largest to date, with revenue growth accelerating 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 the same limited resources, including grid connections, land permits, cooling infrastructure, and affordable electricity.
According to a Cambridge tracker, bitcoin mining globally consumes approximately 13 to 25 gigawatts of continuous power, depending on hardware efficiency assumptions. Anthropic's acquisition of multiple gigawatts from a single deal, in addition to its existing capacity across AWS Trainium, Google TPUs, and Nvidia GPUs, demonstrates the rapid growth of AI as a major competitor for the same energy infrastructure that miners rely on. Furthermore, the aggregate AI compute buildout represents one of the largest sources of new electricity demand in the United States, coinciding with the decision of bitcoin miners to either mine bitcoin or rent their infrastructure to AI companies.
This decision is increasingly favoring the latter, with several mining companies converting their capacity to AI hosting or expanding their AI and high-performance computing revenue. The revenue numbers behind this expansion tell a compelling story, with Anthropic reporting that the number of business customers spending over $1 million annually on Claude has doubled in less than two months. While this does not signify the demise of bitcoin mining, 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 burgeoning AI industry.