Anthropic Reportedly Commits $45 Billion to AI Computing Power at West Virginia Campus
MASON COUNTY, W.Va. — One of the largest financial commitments in the global race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure is reportedly connected directly to a massive development underway in West Virginia.
Anthropic, the company behind the Claude artificial intelligence platform, has reportedly reached a six year agreement worth approximately $45 billion to rent computing capacity from Nscale at its Monarch Compute Campus in Mason County.
Reuters reported Wednesday that the agreement would provide Anthropic with about 460 megawatts of computing capacity at the West Virginia development. The deal was first reported by Bloomberg. Anthropic has not publicly announced the agreement and declined to comment to Reuters.
For West Virginia, the significance goes beyond the size of the reported agreement.
The computing infrastructure Anthropic would use is expected to be physically located in Mason County, placing West Virginia in the middle of the enormous buildout of computing power needed to develop and operate some of the world's most advanced artificial intelligence systems.
Nscale's Monarch Compute Campus covers more than 2,250 acres in Mason County. The first phase is being engineered for 1.35 gigawatts of artificial intelligence computing capacity, while the full site has the potential to eventually support more than 8 gigawatts. Nscale currently lists more than $20 billion in planned capital investment at the campus.
The project was already attracting major technology and industrial partners before the reported Anthropic agreement.
In March, Nscale announced a collaboration involving Microsoft, NVIDIA and Caterpillar at Monarch. Microsoft signed a letter of intent for up to 1.35 gigawatts of computing capacity, while NVIDIA technology is expected to power the computing systems and Caterpillar is involved in the site's power generation infrastructure.
The reported Anthropic agreement would add another major artificial intelligence company to the activity surrounding the West Virginia campus.
Anthropic has emerged as one of the world's most prominent artificial intelligence companies through Claude, which competes with products developed by OpenAI, Google and other major technology companies. As those systems have grown more powerful and more widely used, technology companies have increasingly competed for the enormous amounts of computing capacity needed to train and operate them.
The Mason County development is also expected to bring a significant employment impact to West Virginia.
Nscale says a recent economic impact study prepared by Ernst & Young and commissioned by the company projects more than 6,000 jobs tied to the development over the next two years as the project is built. Once the first phase is completed, the study projects nearly 700 permanent positions associated with the Mason County operation. Those figures are projections rather than jobs already created.
Workforce recruitment has already begun. Nscale held a job fair in Mason County this summer that brought together companies involved in construction and operations along with Marshall University, Mountwest Community and Technical College, West Virginia University and other education and workforce partners.
The first computing capacity at Monarch is expected to become available beginning in late 2027, with the first phase of the campus targeted for completion in early 2028.
If the Anthropic agreement proceeds as reported, the implications for West Virginia are substantial. A company at the forefront of the worldwide artificial intelligence industry would be relying on computing infrastructure located in Mason County as it expands Claude and its other products.
It would also give one of West Virginia's largest technology developments something particularly important as construction moves forward: a reported multibillion dollar commitment for the computing power the site is being built to provide.
