Financial filings show a close relationship between AI developer Anthropic and its primary investors and cloud providers, Amazon and Alphabet. Anthropic reported significant operating losses, while its heavy cloud-computing spending generated substantial revenue for Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
The arrangement illustrates a circular flow of capital in the AI economy: investments in startups are closely tied to spending on their investors’ infrastructure. In 2025, nearly half of Anthropic’s sales went through Amazon’s and Google’s cloud marketplaces.
The arrangement has prompted debate over how to value the earnings of both AI firms and the technology companies that benefit from their spending.