Anthropic is trying to prove that frontier AI can become a real business before it becomes a public company. On September 13, Reuters reported that Anthropic expects positive adjusted operating income for a second consecutive quarter. The Financial Times said gross margins exceed 80% before revenue sharing with distribution partners and model-training costs.
That accounting boundary matters directly to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), two companies supplying vast amounts of infrastructure to Anthropic.
Anthropic’s growth can be good for clouds even when its margin needs decoding
Amazon has invested heavily in Anthropic and built AWS around Claude access and Trainium infrastructure. Anthropic says its Amazon agreement can involve up to 5 gigawatts of capacity. For Amazon.com, Inc., the payoff is simple: explosive Claude usage creates demand for AWS compute, custom silicon and Bedrock distribution even before Anthropic becomes a mature profit machine.
The problem is that Anthropic’s reported gross margin does not answer how attractive the whole ecosystem is after training costs and partner economics. Amazon still has to earn an adequate return on the data centers and chips supporting that growth.
Alphabet Inc. has a parallel route through Google Cloud and TPUs. Anthropic says its Google arrangement covers 5 gigawatts beginning in 2027, giving Alphabet a large outside customer for infrastructure that also supports Gemini. Diversification is the strength. Capital intensity and competition complicate the payoff: if frontier development slows or model pricing falls faster than compute costs, huge contracted capacity can take longer to earn attractive margins.
Hedge funds were already crowded into both infrastructure providers
Insider Monkey counted 369 hedge funds holding Amazon in Q2 2026, up from 353 in Q1. Arrowstreet Capital increased its stake 24% to 40,346,851 shares. Alphabet rose to 275 holders from 265; Berkshire Hathaway increased its Class A position about 45%. The filings predate Anthropic’s September profitability disclosure.
On August 31, 77,698,668 Alphabet Class A shares were sold short, equal to 0.72% of float, with 3.48 days to cover.
Anthropic’s reported adjusted-profit outlook is encouraging, but investors should not confuse a lab-level adjusted metric with proof that every dollar of infrastructure around it earns a high return. Amazon and Alphabet may be the cleaner way to monetize Anthropic’s growth because they sell the picks and shovels. Their own problem is harder: building enough capacity without turning a fast-growing customer into an excuse for mediocre capital returns.
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