Anthropic has placed a landmark direct order with Broadcom for nearly one million TPU v7p “Ironwood” AI chips, as reported by industry research firm SemiAnalysis. This move marks a strategic shift by the leading AI company to deploy these chips entirely in its own controlled data centers, fundamentally altering the traditional supply chain for Google’s custom silicon.
The deal highlights a major supply chain realignment. Unlike the conventional model where TPU chips are accessed exclusively via Google Cloud, Broadcom will now supply rack-scale AI systems based on the TPU v7p directly to Anthropic — effectively “bypassing” Google, the chip’s co-developer. Notably, Google will still earn significant intellectual property licensing revenue from the arrangement, maintaining a role in the ecosystem.
In December 2025, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan confirmed that Anthropic had placed $21 billion in total AI system orders with Broadcom. The latest million-chip purchase represents a core part of this massive commitment. To build out its self-controlled compute infrastructure, Anthropic has partnered with companies such as TeraWulf for data center facilities and Fluidstack for on-site deployment and operations, forming an end-to-end, self-managed AI compute stack.
Industry analysts view this as a clear strategic play by Anthropic: to ensure sovereignty over sensitive enterprise data through on-premises deployment, avoid third-party cloud involvement, reduce long-term operational costs by bypassing cloud service premiums, and deeply customize the underlying compute stack to improve model training efficiency. This also reflects a broader trend among leading AI firms to move away from cloud dependency — shifting from “renting compute” to “owning compute” — as they compete for control over core AGI infrastructure. Furthermore, the large-scale TPU purchase signals Anthropic’s intent to reduce reliance on NVIDIA’s GPU ecosystem and advance its “de-CUDA” strategy.
ICgoodFind Perspective: The AI compute supply chain is rapidly evolving, with self-controlled infrastructure becoming a central trend. We will continue to help the industry connect with high-quality compute resources and navigate this shifting landscape.
