Anthropic, the developer behind the Claude AI model, has entered into a monumental agreement valued at $45 billion to lease artificial intelligence computing capacity from Nscale at its major data center project in West Virginia.

The contract, which spans a six-year term, covers approximately 460 megawatts of power capacity—enough electricity to meet the simultaneous demand of roughly 345,000 American households. To fulfill this substantial requirement, Nscale will deploy Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips, with these processors slated to come online starting late next year.

This arrangement cements Anthropic's position as one of the most significant clients for data center power consumption in recent times. Over the past few months, the company has secured a string of similar agreements with various computing providers, including a $50 billion deal with emerging cloud service provider Fluidstack, a $10 billion partnership with infrastructure startup Volta Infra Holdings Ltd, and a $45 billion contract with Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Having reached a valuation of $965 billion in May, Anthropic is anticipated to pursue an initial public offering in the near future that could set records for fundraising size. Interestingly, this West Virginia project was initially expected to be leased by Microsoft. In March, Microsoft announced it had signed a letter of intent, effectively reserving capacity at the planned data center, and the two companies had previously collaborated on projects in Europe.

However, according to sources familiar with the matter, Microsoft withdrew from the West Virginia initiative in early summer, which opened the door for Anthropic to step in as the tenant. Microsoft has declined to comment on the situation.