Limited compute capacity pushes some customers to other providers.
Chris Paxton#855
Anthropic just had a profitable quarter at a $44 billion annual run rate with a fairly enormous compute shortage that's forced them to ration service and pushed some customers (perhaps just in the short term) into the arms of competitors.
I don't think it's crazy to think their annual revenue would be $100b or more with sufficient compute for inference.
Positive users hail Anthropic's doubled revenue and initial profit as swift growth exceeding OpenAI, whereas negative users view the figures as deceptive accounting and an unsustainable valuation bubble.
No Digg Deeper questions have been answered for this story yet.
Even bigger win for Anthropic:
Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will help it turn an operating profit for the first time.
About $500m in profit.
Nuts.
Holy: After Anthropic secured compute capacity from Colossus 1, it is now also getting access to compute from Colossus 2.
But to be honest: I somehow expected to his. Grok certainly doesn’t need all that compute.
Anthropic exp $10.9B Q2 revenue, up from $4.8B in Q1, and $559M of operating profit for the Q.
Compute is 56 cents per dollar of revenue, lower than I expected.
Q2 projection:
$10.9B revenue -$6.1B compute -$2.7B sales & marketing -$1.5B other costs =$559M operating income
OpenAI made $5.7B in Q1. Anthropic made ~$4.7B.
But Anthropic's annualized revenue recently hit $45B. OpenAI's sits at $25B. The difference: annualized revenue extrapolates from the most recent month, and Anthropic's monthly revenue appears to have more than doubled between Q1 and now.
That means Anthropic's growth rate flipped the entire ranking sometime in Q2 - while also projecting its first operating profit (~$600M). Meanwhile OpenAI is losing $1.22 for every dollar it earns, ChatGPT user growth has stalled below its 1B target, and it just raised $122B in new funding.
One company is getting profitable. The other is raising capital faster than it's growing users. The AI race isn't being won by whoever ships models first. It's being won by whoever figured out unit economics.
According to WSJ, Anthropic is projected to post its first operating profit of about $559M in Q2 2026, with revenue reaching $10.9B, up from $4.8B in Q1.
Annualized: $10.9B × 4 = $43.6B revenue run rate, assuming no further growth.
There's like ten different stories breaking at once. I apologize, I don't usually post this frequently, I don't like to spam people.
According to WSJ, Anthropic is projected to post its first operating profit of about $559M in Q2 2026, with revenue reaching $10.9B, up from $4.8B in Q1.
Annualized: $10.9B × 4 = $43.6B revenue run rate, assuming no further growth.
So ARR growth has finally moderated a bit (or will they blow past it, Ant isn't good at forecasting) June ARR will be around $50B if this Q2 revenue number is true
*ANTHROPIC'S REVENUE SET TO MORE THAN DOUBLE TO $10.9B IN 2Q:WSJ
Anthropic’s 2Q revenue is set to increase by over 2X and will post an operating profit for the first time.
Q1 sales were $4.8B, Q2 sales now being reported at $10.9B.
Operating profit for Q2 expected to be $559M. They previously weren’t projecting to turn a profit until at least 2028
WSJ: Anthropic is now projected to hit its first operating profit in Q2, with revenue jumping 130% to $10.9B after expecting profitability only around 2028.
The shock is not only the profit, but the speed at which enterprise AI spending is converting into real revenue.
Anthropic made $4.8B in Q1, then told investors it expects $559M in operating profit in the June quarter.
The driver is agentic coding, where Claude does longer software tasks instead of only answering one prompt at a time.
That changes the product from a chatbot into rented digital labor, so customers can justify much bigger bills.
The cost story also changed, because Anthropic spent 71 cents of every revenue dollar on compute in Q1 but expects 56 cents in Q2.
Compute is still the main tax on AI, but lower compute per dollar means scale is starting to work in Anthropic’s favor.
Anthropic also benefits from using more Google and Amazon chips, a smaller free consumer base, and fewer giant data-center promises than OpenAI.
---
wsj. com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4
@zephyr_z9 They are paying Elon $1.25 billion a month for the Colossus usage.
So ARR growth has finally moderated a bit (or will they blow past it, Ant isn't good at forecasting) June ARR will be around $50B if this Q2 revenue number is true
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4
Even bigger win for Anthropic:
Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will help it turn an operating profit for the first time.
About $500m in profit.
Nuts.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4
There's like ten different stories breaking at once. I apologize, I don't usually post this frequently, I don't like to spam people.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4
According to WSJ, Anthropic is projected to post its first operating profit of about $559M in Q2 2026, with revenue reaching $10.9B, up from $4.8B in Q1.
Annualized: $10.9B × 4 = $43.6B revenue run rate, assuming no further growth.
@DKThomp Amazing. They're growing 3-4 times faster than OpenAI, and 10-15 times faster than the fastest-growing software companies of the dot-com and cloud eras. 👀
Even bigger win for Anthropic:
Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will help it turn an operating profit for the first time.
About $500 in profit.
Nuts.
Holy: After Anthropic secured compute capacity from Colossus 1, it is now also getting access to compute from Colossus 2.
But to be honest: I somehow expected to his. Grok certainly doesn’t need all that compute.
@yonashav Also Ed Zitron's take on this.
waiting with bated breath for Gary’s take
@kimmonismus Impressive but a lot of it is really around agents, a use which they are actively trying to discourage
I wonder if eventually this will come back to bite them
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4
Even bigger win for Anthropic:
Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will help it turn an operating profit for the first time.
About $500 in profit.
Nuts.
@AndrewCurran_ Yeah, $1.25B for 1.2GW Very expensive
@DKThomp The number is almost beside the point: what changes is the leverage they bring into every compute and partnership conversation from here.
Betting on enterprise when everyone was chasing consumers turned out to be the right bet this time.
@kimmonismus Where did you get $45b from?
$4.7B x 4 = $18.8b
@petesivey I believe you're confusing 'gross profit' and 'operating profit':
