Anthropic Signs 6-Year, $13.7 Billion Computing Power Lease with Trump-Linked Rum Group
According to The Information, Anthropic has signed a 6-year, $13.7 billion computing power lease with Rum Group, a company linked to Trump, to utilize the computing power of its data center currently under construction in Maysville, Georgia.
The contract was signed on August 23 and will be delivered in three equal installments, each worth approximately $4.57 billion. The delivery of the third installment will only take effect after the client approves the delivery plan, allowing Anthropic some flexibility.
Rum Group is the former parent company of Rumble, whose video platform has long been popular among conservative users in the U.S. Trump's Truth Social also operates on Rumble Cloud infrastructure. Early investors in Rumble include Peter Thiel and the venture capital firm Narya Capital co-founded by Vice President J.D. Vance.
This deal also includes a rare equity clause—Rum Group grants the client options for up to approximately 50.8 million Class A shares at an exercise price of just $0.01 per share. The first half of the options will be unlocked as Anthropic purchases computing power in three batches, while the second half will require a separate expansion agreement with an additional amount exceeding 2.5 times the original contract to unlock. Based on the closing price of $7.17 on September 11, if fully unlocked, the value would be approximately $364 million.
Earlier this year, Rum Group acquired the German cloud computing company Northern Data for about $1.52 billion, gaining approximately 22,000 NVIDIA H100/H200 GPUs and 200 megawatts of energy capacity, officially shifting its business focus from a video platform to AI infrastructure, and rebranding the newly acquired cloud and AI business as "Quake AI." Last month, Rum Group confirmed the $13.7 billion contract and the option arrangement in an 8-K filing with the SEC, but did not disclose the client's identity at that time.
After the news was released, Rum Group's stock price surged, rising about 9.3% to $10.23 on August 25, but had fallen 29.9% to $7.17 by September 11, indicating market concerns over the "undisclosed client identity + high equity consideration" in the deal. Currently, Tether and its co-founder Giancarlo Devasini control approximately 50.3% of Rum Group's Class A shares, meaning Anthropic is effectively leasing computing power from a company closely linked to the political circle of Trump and controlled by a stablecoin giant.
ABAB AI Insight
Rum Group, formerly Rumble, has long been a prominent video platform for the U.S. conservative camp, with early funding led by Peter Thiel and Narya Capital co-founded by J.D. Vance. Trump's Truth Social later migrated to operate on Rumble Cloud. Earlier this year, the company spent about $1.52 billion to acquire the German cloud computing firm Northern Data, securing approximately 22,000 H100/H200 GPUs and 200 megawatts of energy capacity, officially shifting its main business from "conservative video platform" to "AI cloud infrastructure," marking the largest shift in its business focus in history.
The payment structure of this $13.7 billion contract is noteworthy—Anthropic is not simply paying cash but allowing Rum Group to additionally receive options for up to 50.8 million shares at an exercise price of only $0.01, with the unlocking progress closely tied to subsequent computing power purchases. This "equity-for-computing power commitment" arrangement essentially converts the client's purchasing certainty into the supplier's expectation of equity appreciation, reducing Anthropic's immediate cash outflow pressure while transferring some future profits to a company politically close to Trump's camp.
This approach is similar to the large-scale long-term computing power lease agreements recently signed by OpenAI and Meta—AI labs are increasingly bypassing traditional cloud giants to sign long-term contracts with new GPU infrastructure providers that include equity considerations. The difference is that Rum Group had almost no AI cloud operation experience prior to this acquisition, which adds a layer of political resource exchange to the deal beyond the logic of ensuring computing power supply.
This essentially represents a restructuring of the industry chain—AI labs' computing power procurement is evolving from "paying professional cloud vendors" to "directly investing in new players with political resources or scarce assets for computing power." Mechanically, whoever can quickly secure scarce resources like GPUs, electricity, and land can bypass the queue periods of traditional cloud vendors and enter the AI infrastructure supply chain; clients willing to pay with equity rather than cash further ties computing power procurement to capital market pricing, giving the originally simple procurement contract an investment attribute.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- When computing power is scarce, those with electricity and GPUs can negotiate equity.
- Cash cannot guarantee certainty; equity can bind long-term supply.
- Political resources are also a form of infrastructure.