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Table of Contents next-generation models, and we cannot provide assurance that increased investment in compute will result in commensurate improvements in model performance. The market for compute is intensely competitive. We compete for access to compute with some of the world’s largest and most well-capitalized technology companies, many of which develop their own competitive AI models and have significantly greater financial resources than us. Many own and operate cloud computing data center infrastructure, maintain captive chip manufacturing or design capabilities, have long-standing strategic relationships with key hardware suppliers, or have significant equity investments from, or other financial arrangements with, such suppliers. These competitors can outbid us for scarce compute, secure priority allocations from chip manufacturers and CSPs, and make long-term capital commitments that we cannot match. We expect demand for advanced compute to continue to grow, and the cost of compute could rise significantly, particularly if AI-driven demand accelerates or if the ability to build highly capable models becomes more broadly available and shifts competition toward access to advanced compute. Additionally, numerous well-funded AI companies are pursuing large-scale AI model development, further increasing demand for limited compute. Certain CSPs from which we obtain substantial compute also develop and offer their own AI models and related services. As a result, our commercial relationships with these providers may not always be fully aligned with our long-term interests, and if the compute we have access to from third parties is curtailed, repriced, or terminated, whether for competitive reasons or otherwise, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected. In addition to competition from third parties, our ability to secure compute is subject to allocation decisions by our CSPs. Although our CSPs are generally subject to contractual commitments with us regarding the provision of compute, our ability to obtain such capacity remains dependent on those providers’ operational execution, adherence to the terms of such contractual provisions, and broader business considerations, such as capacity constraints, internal demand for compute to support their own AI and computing operations, relationships with or contractual obligations to third parties (which may include other AI companies), and risk management considerations. As a result, we may not receive the full amount of compute we seek, or such compute may not be delivered on the timelines we require, even where contractual arrangements are in place. Additionally, we have in the past sought quantities of compute from CSPs in excess of what those partners were willing to provide. If our CSPs reduce, limit, or fail to increase our allocations to keep pace with our growing requirements for any reason, we may need to seek alternative compute sources on less favorable terms or timelines, and we may be unable to secure adequate alternative compute, or any at all. Any such shortfall could constrain our ability to train models, serve customers, or maintain our competitive position. Even if we are able to secure compute, we must still direct it efficiently across the full range of workloads that are a part of our business, including research, model development, serving customers, and internal usage of Claude. While we manage our compute as a single, fungible pool and direct available compute between workloads based on where the marginal unit is expected to be most productive at any given time, there can be no assurance that this approach to compute will be the most efficient or that it will support the needs of each of our workloads. Because demand for compute has historically exceeded available capacity, any constraint on our ability to procure, maintain, or expand that capacity could adversely affect multiple aspects of our business simultaneously, including our ability to serve customers at the quality and scale they expect, to train and improve our models, and to develop new products and capabilities. While we actively manage and balance such compute capacity across these workloads via our capacity management system, if this system fails to perform as intended, or if our ability to dynamically rebalance capacity across workloads is disrupted, customer-facing service quality or model and product development timelines could be adversely affected. There can be no assurance that we will make optimal resourcing decisions, and any significant inefficiencies, including those related to deployment and rebalancing, could adversely affect both our near-term results of operations and our long-term strategic position. These compute resourcing challenges are heightened by the growth of our agentic offerings, which involve multi-step reasoning chains, iterative tool invocations, extended context windows, and sustained inference sessions that consume significantly more compute per user interaction than single-turn API calls or chat-based interactions. As agentic workloads grow as a proportion of our total compute demand, the aggregate compute required to serve our customers could increase disproportionately relative to the associated revenue, placing additional strain on our compute workload management decisions. The majority of our compute is procured under multi-year commitments that are typically entered into well in advance of the periods in which that compute is deployed. Because different AI accelerators have varying 30
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