Anthropic buys 1.7 gigawatts of gas generators for $3.4 billion, the FT reports

Anthropic has agreed a $3.4 billion deal for gas-fired generators to power its data centers, according to a Financial Times report published Sunday. The FT, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the company secured commitments in late September for 1.7 gigawatts of heavy-duty generators from San Antonio-based OnePWR Solutions, along with the engineering and construction needed to install them. Reuters and Bloomberg carried the FT's report. Neither Anthropic nor OnePWR is quoted in the summaries we could read, and we have not independently confirmed the figures.

What the report says

The FT, as summarized by Investing.com, describes the purchase as the largest known single buy of power-generation equipment by an AI laboratory. OnePWR had ordered the generators from Caterpillar about two years ago but needed financing to complete the purchase. Anthropic first planned to become a OnePWR customer, then took over the existing equipment orders instead. It did not acquire OnePWR, and none of the supplier's employees moved to Anthropic.

The report puts the deal in context: xAI bought mobile gas turbines for $2 billion earlier this year, and Alphabet bought the energy developer Intersect in late 2025. It also repeats two financing details that matter more than the generators. Anthropic's monthly payments to lease computing capacity from SpaceX are expected to reach $3.1 billion by year-end, and Blackstone has warned investors the company could receive a junk credit rating rather than the investment-grade one previously expected. Those are FT claims, and we have not checked them.

The number behind the number

Divide $3.4 billion by 1.7 gigawatts and you get about $2 billion per gigawatt, or roughly $2 million per megawatt, by our arithmetic. That figure includes engineering and installation, so it is not a price for the machines alone and should not be compared with a bare equipment quote.

The better evidence of why this was worth doing is in Caterpillar's third-quarter release, filed with the SEC on Oct. 29. Power Generation sales rose 30% to $3.421 billion from $2.634 billion a year earlier. Caterpillar attributed the growth mainly to turbines and large reciprocating engines "primarily in data center applications." The Power & Energy segment earned a 24.4% margin, up from 21.9%, and the CEO described a "record backlog." Caterpillar did not say how much of that backlog is data-center equipment.

One caution: if OnePWR's order is two years old, as the FT says, this is not new demand for Caterpillar. The units were already in the queue, and the change is who owns them. Whether they sit in Caterpillar's reported backlog, we cannot say. Caterpillar has not commented in anything we found. Our earlier piece on Atlas Energy shows the same pattern: Caterpillar equipment is the common input across these power deals.

Who it actually hits

Equipment makers with multi-year lead times decide who gets power first, and a buyer that takes over an existing order skips the queue. For a regional electrical contractor, the practical effect is competition for the same switchgear, transformers and skilled crews. We hold 25,380 independent electrical businesses on file, and none of them can place an order that jumps a two-year line. If you bid commercial work with long equipment lead times, price the delay into quotes now.

The financing question is the other side. Anthropic's total computing commitments run to roughly $895 billion, as we reported in our November 6 story, and the company is preparing an IPO, covered in our valuation piece. A rating that lands below investment grade would raise what that debt costs. Watch the IPO filing for how the generators are accounted for.

What to watch

• Any Anthropic or OnePWR statement confirming the size and terms.
• Whether Anthropic's amended S-1 discloses the purchase and how it is financed.
• Caterpillar's next backlog disclosure for Power & Energy.

Sources: Investing.com summary of the Financial Times report; Caterpillar Q3 2026 earnings release (SEC EDGAR); Caterpillar filings; business counts from the Chronicle's independent business database. Per-megawatt figure is our calculation. This is market information, not investment advice.