Alphabet, the parent company of Google, rose roughly 2% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after a report that Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup behind the Claude chatbot, has committed to spending approximately $200 billion on Google Cloud over five years.
The deal, first reported by The Information, begins next year and would represent more than 40% of Google's cloud revenue backlog, a metric that reflects contractual commitments from enterprise customers.
The after-hours surge briefly pushed Alphabet's market capitalisation above that of Nvidia, the chipmaker whose dominance in artificial intelligence hardware has kept it at or near the top of global valuations for much of the past two years.
The report adds fresh momentum to a share price rally that has already narrowed the gap between the two companies.
Alphabet reached a market valuation of $4.67 trillion as of Tuesday morning, closing in on Nvidia's $4.79 trillion, after a first-quarter earnings beat that sent shares up roughly 10% last week.
Google Cloud crossed $20 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time in the first quarter, growing 63%, while the cloud backlog nearly doubled quarter on quarter to more than $460 billion.
The Anthropic commitment builds on a relationship that has deepened rapidly in recent weeks.
In April, Anthropic signed a deal with Google and Broadcom, the semiconductor group, for expanded processing capacity using Google's tensor processing units (TPUs), custom chips designed for artificial intelligence workloads.
A Broadcom regulatory filing disclosed that the arrangement would support roughly 3.5 gigawatts of TPU-based compute capacity for Anthropic beginning in 2027.
Alphabet also announced last month that it would invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, starting with $10 billion in cash at a $350 billion valuation, with a further $30 billion contingent on performance milestones.
Anthropic said its revenue run rate had topped $30 billion, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025, with more than 1,000 business customers spending over $1 million annually.
Related reading
- Nvidia launches open-source quantum AI models as it deepens grip on chip design workflows
- Nvidia quantum AI launch triggers buying frenzy across Asian and US tech stocks
- Washington tightens its grip on AI as Google, Microsoft and xAI agree to government safety checks
The scale of the reported cloud commitment highlights the circular economics that now underpin much of the artificial intelligence sector: Alphabet invests billions in Anthropic, which in turn commits to spending hundreds of billions on Alphabet's cloud infrastructure and custom silicon.
For Alphabet investors, the Anthropic relationship provides a degree of assurance that the company's aggressive capital expenditure programme, expected to exceed $185 billion this year, is generating contracted demand rather than speculative capacity.
The recap
- Alphabet briefly overtook Nvidia in market value after surge.
- Anthropic committed $200 billion to Google Cloud over five years.
- Deal would account for more than 40% of Google's contracted cloud revenue.
