Saad Ullah
● That Anthropic burned through approximately $2.66 billion on Amazon Web Services during the first three quarters of 2025. That figure essentially matches the company's revenue for the same period, raising serious questions about whether AI startups can build profitable businesses when infrastructure costs eat up everything they earn.
● As Ed Zitron pointed out, Anthropic's AWS expenses seem to climb right alongside revenue, leaving "little path to profitability." This pattern has people wondering if governments should step in—maybe with new profit taxes or spending caps on cloud infrastructure—to prevent AI companies from drowning in compute costs. Some worry that without intervention, we could see wave of bankruptcies and talent exodus if margins keep shrinking.
● The policy implications cut both ways. Slapping an infrastructure tax on AI compute could squeeze companies even harder, potentially slowing down research and scaring off new players. On the flip side, letting things run wild means governments might miss out on tax revenue from these fast-growing companies while they're still technically breaking even on paper.
● What really jumps out is the power imbalance. As Nobody Special noted, Anthropic's massive bill represents only about 2.5% of Amazon's capital expenditures this year. Cloud providers hold enormous leverage, and that shapes everything from corporate tax flows to income tax contributions and how regulators think about the industry.
● Anthropic's $2.6 billion AWS tab has become more than a line item—it's a snapshot of the shaky economics underneath the AI boom.
Saad Ullah
