Big Tech profits from private AI companies twice — as a supplier and as a shareholder

Reports from Broadcom and Oracle, along with a recent analysis by the Financial Times, highlight two companies that have not yet gone public: Anthropic and OpenAI. For Big Tech, they have become both key customers and sources of record-breaking profits.

Broadcom manufactures custom AI accelerators for both companies. CEO Hock Tan expects to double AI-related revenue from a projected $58 billion in the current fiscal year to approximately $115 billion in 2027, and sees a path to $230 billion by 2028. Anthropic is set to become the largest customer for these chips by 2027, while OpenAI could become the second-largest by 2028.

Oracle signed over $30 billion in new AI cloud contracts during the quarter, bringing its total order backlog to $664 billion. Capital expenditures rose to $28.5 billion—up from $8.5 billion a year earlier—as the company brought 850 MW of capacity online over the three-month period. Its flagship project is the Stargate campus in Abilene, built for OpenAI; six of the eight planned buildings have already been handed over to the client. The campus was designed and constructed by Crusoe.

A second way to profit from these same companies is by holding equity stakes in them.

According to Financial Times estimates, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia recorded over $160 billion in profits during the second quarter, driven largely by the revaluation of their stakes in Anthropic, SpaceX, and other companies. In May, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion, up from $380 billion in February. For Amazon, revaluation gains—primarily from its stake in Anthropic—accounted for $50.5 billion, representing more than half of its quarterly pre-tax profit.

In this cycle, value appreciation is being realized even before an IPO. Anthropic filed a confidential prospectus with the SEC in June, and OpenAI—according to the FT—is also preparing for a listing; ahead of their IPOs, the gains from this growth are accruing to those who already hold stakes.