Anthropic’s $2 Trillion IPO Exposes Weaknesses: 47% of Revenue Depends on Amazon and Google, 16 Cents Taken from Every Dollar

The IPO prospectus submitted by Anthropic to investors has, for the first time, brought its intricate financial relationships with Amazon and Google to light.

On September 29, according to this confidential document obtained by Reuters, nearly half of Anthropic’s revenue in 2025 will be generated via the platforms of these two cloud giants, which serve the triple roles of investor, compute provider, and direct competitor.

The prospectus reveals that in 2025, Anthropic’s revenue will reach nearly $4.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 12 times, though operating losses will double over the same period to more than $8 billion. Behind this rapid growth lies an increasing structural dependence on a few partners—a risk that Anthropic has clearly listed in its prospectus.

47% of revenue flows through the hands of two giants

According to the prospectus, in 2025, Anthropic’s sales completed through Amazon and Google (under Alphabet) cloud platforms will total approximately $2.16 billion, accounting for 47% of total annual revenue.

This proportion has been steadily rising—from just 11% in 2023, to 32% in 2024, and approaching half last year.

Reuters estimates that Anthropic paid about $351 million in distribution fees to the two platforms, equivalent to about 16 cents out of every 1 dollar in cloud platform revenue flowing to Amazon or Google. These expenses are included in Anthropic’s financial statements under “sales, marketing, and partner” operating costs.

Investor, provider, distributor, competitor—four functions in one

The complexity of this financial relationship goes far beyond this.

Amazon and Google simultaneously play four roles: injecting billions of dollars of investment into Anthropic, providing its computing infrastructure, collecting payments from clients on its behalf, and, at the same time, directly competing with Anthropic in the AI sector.

By the end of 2025, Anthropic’s irrevocable hosting and compute purchasing commitments will reach as high as $54.6 billion. By early 2026, its total long-term commitments will exceed $417 billion, covering 3.5 GW of dedicated computing capacity.

In the prospectus, Anthropic characterizes these intertwined relationships as a competitive advantage, stating that distributing the Claude model through Amazon, Google, and Microsoft cloud platforms enables access to existing customers via their large sales networks—achieving “a level of market penetration that we believe would be difficult for any single company to directly replicate.”

However, the prospectus also acknowledges that reliance on a few partners and suppliers “creates complex dynamic relationships, and may give rise to conflicts of interest and adversely impact our access to computing resources.”

The document also points out that cloud providers can see Anthropic’s pricing and commercial terms, potentially influencing their decisions regarding resource allocation and promotional efforts.

Two major clients each account for 12%, with no long-term contracts

Customer concentration is also a significant risk.

The prospectus shows that there are two unnamed customers, each contributing 12% of Anthropic’s annual revenue.

Anthropic warns that most of its major clients are not bound by long-term contracts and may reduce or stop spending at any time.

On the accounts receivable side, by the end of 2025, Anthropic will have $909 million in outstanding customer receivables, of which 60% is collected on its behalf by Amazon and Google, up from 42% in 2024. Anthropic cautions that if this process faces disputes or delays, even with direct contracts with clients, cash flow could still be impacted.

Revenue recognition dispute with OpenAI

This prospectus also brings the issue of revenue recognition between Anthropic and OpenAI back into focus.

Anthropic records the full amount of cloud platform marketplace contracts as revenue, with platform commissions treated as marketing costs—on the grounds that Anthropic, as the “principal” in the transaction, is responsible for pricing and service delivery, which complies with accounting standards.

However, according to a June report by Reuters, OpenAI had told investors and staff that this method inflated Anthropic’s revenue by billions of dollars.

In response, Anthropic stated that the company abides by established accounting standards, and recognizes total revenue because it is the “principal” in the transaction.