Artificial intelligence (AI) corporations Anthropic signed a six-year computing deal worth a total of $13.7 billion (about 18.4 trillion won) with RUM Group, IT outlet The Information reported on the 13th (local time), citing multiple sources.
RUM Group is a corporations that operates the video platform Rumble, and it has close ties with the Trump administration, including hosting the service of Truth Social, founded by U.S. President Donald Trump. Early investors include billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir co-founder, and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
Anthropic has recently been securing AI infrastructure by signing a series of large-scale computing contracts over the past year with Google, SpaceX, and nScale. Taken together, these deals amount to at least 14.8 gigawatts (GW), and the expense over the next 10 years is estimated to reach up to $517 billion (about 700 trillion won).
RUM Group said in a disclosure on the 23rd on the previous month that it had signed a $13.7 billion deal, but it did not disclose the counterparty at the time.
RUM Group entered the AI cloud business by acquiring the German neocloud corporations Northern Data for about $767 million (about 1 trillion won) in June. Through this, it secured about 22,000 units of Nvidia Hopper-generation graphics processing units (GPUs), H100 and H200, and a data center site in the state of Georgia in the United States, and later changed its corporate name to RUM Group.
Anthropic plans to lease the computing capacity of the Maysville, Georgia, data center now under construction. However, the facility's grid interconnection capacity is said to be only 120 megawatts (MW), and the completion timing is unclear.
RUM Group also said in last month's disclosure that it has not yet secured the funds needed for data center construction and equipment purchases and plans to cover them through additional liability and capital raising.
What is unusual about this deal is that Anthropic secured an option to buy up to 51 million shares of RUM Group stock at 1 cent per share.
RUM Group shares closed at $7.17 on the 11th, putting its market capitalization at about $2.8 billion. If Anthropic exercises all of its options, it could reap more than $360 million in paper gains at the current share price. However, the size of the option exercise is linked to the computing capacity Anthropic actually purchases from RUM Group.
Investment information outlet TradingView analyzed that a partnership with RUM Group, which is associated with the Trump administration, could amplify valuation volatility in Anthropic's initial public offering (IPO) process if it escalates into conflicts of interest and procurement rule controversies. At the same time, it noted that building a friendly relationship with the Trump administration could work to its advantage in winning large-scale government and defense contracts in the future.