Anthropic Claims Profitability, Excluding Claude Development Costs

Anthropic has reported to investors that it posted a profit for the second consecutive quarter, but that figure only works if the expenses tied to developing the next iteration of Claude are excluded.

Per the Financial Times, the company shared these numbers with a select group of backers while the market anticipates its planned Nasdaq listing.

Profit Claim Excludes Amazon's Share and Model Training Expenses

According to the report, adjusted operating income turned positive again this quarter. This metric excludes stock-based compensation—the equity Anthropic gives researchers in place of cash.

Gross margins exceed 80%. This is calculated before two deductions:

• First, the portion Amazon and other partners receive for reselling Claude.
• Second, the cost of training the models.

Put simply, Anthropic says it is profitable on the Claude models already built, not on the effort to create the next version. That upcoming work is what the IPO aims to fund.

NEWS: Anthropic says they’re highly profitable if you take out some of their biggest expenses

— Exec Sum (@exec_sum) September 15, 2026

Training is not a secondary activity; it is the process by which a new Claude is created.

In April, Anthropic committed to multiple gigawatts of chip capacity with Google and Broadcom. CFO Krishna Rao described it as the company's "most significant compute commitment to date."

Anthropic recently announced that it has signed a new deal with Google and Broadcom for 3.5GW of next-gen TPUs coming online in 2027, which the company says is its "most significant compute commitment to date."$GOOG $AVGO $NVDA

— Beth Kindig (@Beth_Kindig) April 9, 2026

Revenue growth is robust enough to support this. Sales reached $11.5 billion in Q2, 14 times the figure from a year prior. Joey Brookhart, lead AI analyst at SemiAnalysis, said that this growth alone poses a challenge to competitors.

"If you continue to operate at these margins and growth rates, it will be so hard to compete."

Amodei Called for an AI Slowdown Two Days Earlier

CEO Dario Amodei published an essay on Saturday urging the industry to decelerate. The profit figures reached investors a couple of days later.

"We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models."

Chip stocks declined on the next trading day. Michael Burry, known for shorting the 2008 housing market, called the timing self-serving.

"IPOs need hype & puffery; 'we are so awesome it could become dangerous' is hype & puffery"

The Anthropic IPO prospectus will be the real test, since a public filing must reveal the bottom line, including all training costs.