Anthropic's IPO filing shows nearly $900 billion in obligations, Intel has its worst day since 1974, and more - Silicon Brief #94

In this edition, covering 25 October to 1 November:

• Anthropic's IPO filing shows nearly $900 billion in future obligations, including about $800 billion in TPU and GPU commitments.
• Intel shares closed down nearly 29% on 30 October, their worst day since 1974, after a fourth quarter forecast below analyst expectations.
• Meta plans to raise $95 billion in equity to fund AI infrastructure and superintelligence.

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Anthropic

Anthropic's IPO registration statement shows nearly $900 billion in future obligations spanning data centers, servers, GPUs, leases and power, with $117.5 billion in current liabilities and $112 billion in cash. The filing outlines roughly $800 billion in future TPU and GPU commitments. Less than one third of its $8.9 billion first half compute bill went to serving customers, and its five largest compute deals could cost about $103 billion a year once fully delivered. Obligations · Compute commitments

Anthropic was the unnamed Customer B in SpaceX's filing, Bloomberg reports, accounting for 34.5% of SpaceX's third quarter revenue through data center contracts in Memphis that could be worth up to $120.5 billion through 2029, with cancellation rights after early 2027. Anthropic has also agreed to an initial $250 million order for Fractile's inference chips, Bloomberg reports, and Companies House filings show the London startup allocated £577 million, about $774 million, in Series C shares. SpaceX customer · Fractile

Bank of America, Blackstone, Citi and Morgan Stanley will finance a special purpose vehicle that buys Broadcom AI accelerators and networking equipment for lease to Anthropic, with Broadcom providing residual value support and deliveries expected from 2027. Nvidia is discussing billions of dollars in credit guarantees for power and construction at the West Virginia data center Anthropic plans to use under its $45 billion deal with Nscale; nothing is signed and terms could change. Broadcom financing · Nscale

Hyperscalers and their spending

Meta plans to raise $95 billion in equity, $35 billion through underwritten offerings and up to $60 billion through an at the market program, to fund AI infrastructure and superintelligence. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom are interested in buying up to $5 billion of the shares. Meta

Microsoft's fiscal first quarter revenue rose 19% to $92.3 billion, with Azure revenue up 48% and Microsoft Cloud revenue up 30% to $63.9 billion. It reported $10 billion in revenue from commercial arrangements with OpenAI in the quarter, nearly 11% of the total, and plans a $25 billion bond offering for capital spending including AI infrastructure, due to close on 4 November. GitHub, which Microsoft owns, plans to add four million CPU cores and 160 petabytes of storage after AI driven code commits contributed to outages. Microsoft results · OpenAI revenue · Bond · GitHub

Amazon's third quarter sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion and AWS revenue rose 39% to $46 billion. Amazon says higher AI capital spending contributed to a $42.4 billion trailing twelve month free cash flow outflow. Synergy Research Group estimates global cloud infrastructure service revenue rose 55% to $167.7 billion in the third quarter, with Amazon ahead of Microsoft and Google. Amazon · Synergy

Oracle

Oracle forecasts $30 billion in free cash flow for the year ending May 2029 and will cap new fundraising at $20 billion through May 2030; its shares rose as much as 14% after the announcement at its annual conference in Las Vegas. Oracle and NVIDIA plan to expand OCI Superclusters with Vera Rubin NVL72 systems to multi gigawatt scale, and Vera Rubin NVL72 and Vera CPUs are now generally available on OCI. Cash flow · Vera Rubin

OCI will offer Google TPUs from 2027, the first hyperscale cloud outside Google to do so. Oracle also plans to host SambaNova SN50 inference chips and to offer Cerebras inference from 2027. AMD's 6th Gen EPYC processors will power OCI Compute E7 instances, Intel and Oracle plan a multiyear Xeon collaboration with OCI X14 offerings expected to use Diamond Rapids, and Snowflake AI Data Cloud will become a native OCI service. Google TPUs · SambaNova · Cerebras · AMD · Intel · Snowflake

OpenAI

OpenAI plans to buy Google's AI chips, The Information reports; it already rents them and is also a major Nvidia customer. OpenAI applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill 72 acres of wetlands for four data center buildings in Effingham County, Georgia. Residents and environmental groups fear flooding, and OpenAI says it will preserve 70% of the wetlands. CEO Sam Altman says OpenAI plans to use AI controlled robots to build data centers. Google chips · Georgia wetlands · Robots

OpenAI plans a policy and public relations campaign after the US midterm elections, with proposals for safeguards on advanced AI, community agreements for data centers and US leadership in global AI standards. Policy campaign

SpaceX and xAI

Elon Musk said SpaceX closed $40 billion in mostly callable debt financing to buy GPUs arriving in the first half of 2027, and predicted a shakeout among more than 200 neocloud companies as debt markets tighten. In Southaven, Mississippi, a federal court rejected SpaceXAI's request to dismiss an NAACP lawsuit alleging that 27 gas turbines powering its AI data centers ran without air permits. xAI subsidiary MZX has bought five homes there and reportedly offered to buy more from residents who agree not to join a lawsuit over turbine noise. A realtor said the company is targeting 418 homes; xAI denies the noise claims. $40 billion debt · NAACP lawsuit · Southaven homes

Intel

Intel's third quarter revenue rose 21% to $16.5 billion and Data Center and AI revenue reached $7.3 billion, but its fourth quarter forecast of $15 billion to $16 billion missed estimates. The shares closed down nearly 29% on 30 October, their worst day since 1974, erasing nearly $140 billion in market value. An Israel factory accident cuts about $300 million from fourth quarter revenue, and AI demand for memory is pushing up PC prices. Intel also agreed to buy Israeli quantum software company Classiq for $2.3 billion in cash and stock, with closing expected in the first half of 2027. Results · Share drop · Classiq

Nvidia and chip controls

The US Department of Justice is examining how Nvidia's planned $12.93 billion acquisition of Hugging Face could affect AI competition, Reuters reports, including whether Nvidia could use the model sharing platform to disadvantage rivals. US intelligence agencies reportedly surveilled Megaspeed executive Alice Huang over suspected ties to China and her relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, The New York Times reports, citing anonymous sources. Nvidia denied the concerns. Hugging Face · Megaspeed

Malaysia's Customs Department seized 30 servers with advanced US origin AI chips, valued at about $12.2 million, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 15 October; officials said the shipment was misdeclared and meant for reexport without a permit. Eclypsium researchers showed that attackers with access to certain NVIDIA data center hardware could change memory and model weights so chatbots give altered answers. NVIDIA says memory access protections can block the attack. Malaysia seizure · Eclypsium

Chipmakers and suppliers

Samsung Electronics reported record third quarter revenue of KRW 195.3 trillion and operating profit of KRW 107.4 trillion, KRW 106.5 trillion of it from its Device Solutions division. SK hynix reported record third quarter revenue of 104.6155 trillion won and operating profit of 83.3338 trillion won as HBM4 and server sales rose; it expects HBM4 to become its main product in the fourth quarter. Samsung · SK hynix

KLA reported $4.14 billion in revenue for its fiscal first quarter and guides about $4.7 billion for the second. ASM International's third quarter revenue rose 44% to a record €1.16 billion, and it expects 2027 revenue above €5.7 billion. Marvell Technology is in advanced talks to buy optical component maker Lumentum, a source familiar with the matter says. KLA · ASM · Marvell

Murata Manufacturing plans to invest about 1 trillion yen through fiscal 2030 to expand multilayer ceramic capacitor production in Japan, ASEAN and China. Fujifilm plans to invest 10 billion yen, about $63.3 million, in magnetic tape production at its Odawara plant as AI data center demand grows. Altera announced its Agilex 2X FPGA portfolio, with Agilex 27 samples expected in the second half of 2027, and Anduril and Qualcomm built BlueChip laptop prototypes on Snapdragon X chips for government and military customers, with orders planned from 2027. Murata · Fujifilm · Altera · BlueChip

In chip design, Cadence introduced Maestro AI models built partly on NVIDIA Nemotron that customers can run in house and post train on their own designs. UK startup Circuit Mind raised $25 million and launched an AI engine that checks circuit schematics for errors, and Harmonic says its Aristotle model can now verify software in C and chip designs in Verilog. Cadence · Circuit Mind · Harmonic

Chip startups

FuriosaAI raised $620 million at a $2.9 billion valuation in a round led by South Korea's National Growth Fund, and plans to produce 20,000 chips in 2026 and 40,000 in 2027. Short seller Culper Research claims Cerebras Systems' wafer scale chips last 1.4 to 2.3 years, below the three to five years stated in its draft IPO filings; Cerebras' stock fell after the report. FuriosaAI · Cerebras

Powerlattice raised $86 million of a planned $111 million for chiplets that cut the power used by AI processors, an SEC filing shows. Unconventional AI is buying Israeli chip startup NeuReality in an undisclosed cash and stock deal, and Rebellions NPUs are now officially supported in the open source llm-d inference framework. Powerlattice · NeuReality · Rebellions

Compute deals and neoclouds

SWI Compute launched with 3.6 GW of power capacity secured by SWI Group in Europe and the US, ordered about $1 billion in NVIDIA systems and plans its first 30 MW UK AI factory with nearly 7,000 GPUs by the end of 2027. Perplexity will use NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs at an IREN campus under a multi year agreement. India's AM Intelligence plans to raise up to $3 billion in bonds and bank loans for 29,000 Nvidia Rubin chips, and Argentum AI is in talks with a private credit firm for $5 billion to buy more chips for its data center in Poland. SWI Compute · Perplexity and IREN · AM Intelligence · Argentum AI

General Compute raised a $100 million Series A for an inference cloud built on Cerebras, SambaNova and Positron AI chips, with more than 50 MW in the pipeline. Hyperbolic raised a $30 million Series A1 for its Forge control plane and a global compute grid. Dutch provider Nebul will build a cluster of more than 1,000 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs in Machelen, Belgium, and OneQode signed for 14 MW with AdaniConneX in Chennai, with talks on up to 114 MW more. General Compute · Hyperbolic · Nebul · OneQode

KB Kookmin Bank is lead arranger of a 12.6 trillion won financing for a project led by Brookfield to build AI computing infrastructure in South Korea and supply capacity to Naver Cloud; about 10.7 trillion won in loans makes it Korea's largest syndicated loan and its first GPU financing deal. PIF and Aramco closed a deal giving Aramco 49% of HUMAIN, and Aramco will contribute about SAR9.9 billion ($2.6 billion) in 2026 toward HUMAIN's growth and its planned 3 gigawatts of capacity by 2030. Freedom Holding Corp. is developing a $2 billion, 100 MW Sovereign AI Hub in Kazakhstan. Etihad GO Telecom awarded Total Technical Triangle a $49.6 million contract to build a Cloud AI Data Centre in Saudi Arabia with Dell systems and NVIDIA GPUs over 12 months. KB Kookmin · HUMAIN · Freedom · GO and 3T

New data center capacity

Envision Group says its Galaxy Campus in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2028 and could reach 3 gigawatts. The Chatterjee Group launched Cortex DC to develop 2GW of capacity across India, and Tata Communications plans to invest $400 million to $450 million in about 10,000 km of AI ready fiber in India. Telehouse and KDDI bought a site at East London's East India Dock for more than £220 million for a planned 65MW data center, and Alibaba Cloud opened its first Netherlands region with two Amsterdam data centers. Envision · Cortex DC · Tata Communications · Telehouse · Alibaba Cloud

AirTrunk secured an AU$4.25 billion green loan from 32 lenders for its SYD3 campus in Western Sydney, which could reach 400MW. STTGDC secured a JPY93 billion green loan for its 70MW campus in Inzai City, Japan, and EdgeCore completed a $521 million securitization backed by its SV01 data center in Santa Clara. AirTrunk · STTGDC · EdgeCore

Runware plans to expand its factories in Romania to produce 30 megawatts of modular AI data center capacity per day by 2028. Bull joined the Czech AI Gigafactory consortium led by České Radiokomunikace, Canada joined the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, and Google's Project Suncatcher prototype satellite runs AI inference in orbit. Runware · Bull · EuroHPC · Suncatcher

Hyundai Motor Group says Hyundai Motor, Kia, Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Hyundai AutoEver will invest in its 9 trillion won AI Valley project in Saemangeum, South Korea, with construction of the AI data center planned for March 2027 and operations from early 2030. LG CNS says its Jakarta AI data center has tenants for all its capacity before completion in early November, and it plans more data centers in Indonesia. Hyundai · LG CNS

Power and cooling

Vertiv's third quarter net sales rose 61% to $4.313 billion, organic orders more than doubled and it raised its 2026 guidance. It completed its purchase of UtilityInnovation Group for about $1.45 billion in cash plus up to $1.15 billion tied to EBITDA targets, adding microgrid controls and onsite generation. Wesco's data center sales rose about 55% to $1.8 billion in the third quarter. Daikin expects its North American data center cooling business to exceed $3.3 billion by fiscal 2030 and plans to raise cooling production capacity to 2.5 times 2024 levels. Vertiv results · UtilityInnovation · Wesco · Daikin

National Grid agreed to buy 29.5 hectares at Dorman Point in Teesside for a substation that could supply up to 3.2GW to a neighbouring AI data centre. A Sierra Club analysis reported by Bloomberg projects that planned US data centers could add 618 million metric tons of power sector emissions between 2025 and 2030, as many projects turn to gas plants because of grid connection delays. National Grid · Sierra Club

Envision says its integrated 800V DC power system now powers live computing workloads at its Galaxy AI data center campus in Ulanqab, China, combining solid state transformers, battery storage and AI based controls to bring power from a 10 kV input to the server racks. Envision 800V DC

Local opposition and rules

Finnish police opened an environmental law investigation into Google's local subsidiary Tuike Finland over forest cleared at the planned Muhos data center site before impact assessments were done; the company says it will cooperate. A five month Investigate Europe investigation in nine countries reports electrocutions, intimidation and withheld wages affecting migrant workers on data center projects linked to Google, Microsoft and construction contractors. Finland · Investigate Europe

In the UK, a data centre covenant in the Autumn Budget 2026 ties priority grid connections to local investment, local jobs and protection of water supplies. A Spotlight on Corruption investigation found that UK ministers and officials met 137 businesses on AI growth zone plans but no environmental groups. Spain eased its draft data center decree, which now applies above 10 MW instead of 1 MW, and Malaysia will require new data centers to source at least 30% of their power from renewables. UK covenant · Spotlight on Corruption · Spain · Malaysia

San Diego's council unanimously approved a 45 day moratorium on data center permits, and four California representatives plan a bill to block a commercial data center at the city's NAVWAR site unless local governments approve it. A University of Wyoming survey found 70% of residents oppose more large AI data centers, and Prometheus Hyperscale dropped its planned 1.5 gigawatt campus in Natrona County, Wyoming, without notice to local officials. In Michigan, Delhi Township officials say they were not consulted on a proposed 700MW campus near Lansing and are considering opposing it. San Diego · NAVWAR · Wyoming survey · Natrona County · Michigan

In Australia, Energy North dropped the June 2028 first power date for its 1 gigawatt Project Ares campus in the Northern Territory after the territory's environment regulator paused its review to seek federal advice; questions include water use, energy supply and Aboriginal sacred sites, and no new timeline is set. A University of Houston survey found 79% of likely Texas voters support limiting the number of data centers in the state, and 99% say proposed data centers should pay for required grid expansions. Project Ares · Texas survey

Also

NBC reports that organized crime groups have intercepted more than $100 million in US shipments of data center equipment since June 2026. Check Point launched its MHO 200 orchestrator with up to 12.8 Tbps of fabric capacity for neoclouds, telcos and governments, and Rival.io says its GraphX technology runs DeepSeek V4 Flash on eight NVIDIA L4 GPUs. Thefts · Check Point · Rival.io