(Amazon AWS)

Amazon to invest up to $25 billion more in Anthropic; Claude developer to spend more than $100 billion on AWS AI technology

This is the latest edition of a frenetic dash for AI compute to power Claude, which is undergoing some problems of success.

Luke Kawa

14h

Anthropic is continuing its scramble to accumulate more computing power, and Amazon is only too happy to oblige.

As part of an expanded pact, the e-commerce and cloud giant is poised to invest an additional $5 billion in the Claude developer now and up to $20 billion more in the future.

Anthropic, for its part, aims to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services tech over the next decade. That totals 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, some of which is expected to come online this year. The outlays are said to include multiple generations of the Trainium chips and Gravitron CPUs.

AWS has been Anthropic’s primary cloud provider and an investor in the AI startup turned private juggernaut since 2023. Before this news, Amazon held an $8 billion stake in Anthropic. CNBC reports that the initial investment comes at the $380 billion valuation from its Series G round that closed in February; per Business Insider, its valuation may have effectively more than doubled since then.

This is the latest edition of a frenetic dash for AI compute to fuel Claude, which is undergoing some problems of success. As its tools have become increasingly popular (and, allegedly, disturbingly powerful), users have bemoaned use limits and stealth token rationing in recent weeks, with rival OpenAI saying that its competitive advantage is access to compute.

Anthropic’s computing crunch has helped rejuvenate the AI trade in recent weeks by testifying to downstream end user demand. In other words, the cacophony of complaints about Claude access is being viewed as evidence that the appetite for compute has meaningful breadth across businesses and isn’t just an arms race among hyperscalers.

In April alone, Anthropic reached an AI compute deal with CoreWeave and boosted its agreements with Google and Broadcom.

“Our users tell us Claude is increasingly essential to how they work, and we need to build the infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing demand,” Anthropic CEO and cofounder Dario Amodei said in the press release.

For Amazon, this marks an acceleration in its custom chip business (a subset of the AI trade that seems to be going from strength to strength as of late).

Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy also said its custom chip business was “on fire” and had exceeded a $20 billion annual revenue run rate, doubling from the $10 billion reported earlier this year.

Claire Yubin Oh & David Crowther29m

BYND rises on elevated volumes, has now doubled in the last 10 days after product revamps

Beyond Meat soared as much as 18% in overnight trading, extending a winning streak that has seen the stock nearly double since April 10, after gaining over 41% in yesterday's session alone.

That's a significant turnaround for the meat alternative company, which just three weeks ago was tanking after issuing weak sales guidance... with the company’s management laying blame on American society for its business struggles.

Beyond repair?

BYND has had two distinct moments in the sun: one as a bonafide startup stud promising to transform the food industry forever in 2020 and 2021, and the other as a meme-stock, when the company suddenly found itself at the center of a retail trading frenzy last October after a tumultuous few years.

Sparking this latest tick higher appears to be a new product release from last Thursday, when the company revealed that Beyond Immerse, the company's first functional beverage line, had signed a distribution agreement with Big Geyser — one of the country's largest non-alcoholic distributors. That followed an update to its breakfast sausage range just three days earlier.

It's a big ask for a new sausage or protein-packed drinks with fruity flavors — both highly competitive categories — to fully save a company that’s seen sales sink, losses balloon, and its share price crater through the years. But the product news, combined with Beyond appeasing Nasdaq regulators by finally filing its delayed 2025 annual report, seems to have been enough to reinvigorate investor interest, shaking off some concerns about a delisting.

Perhaps most importantly however, is that retail traders are once again fishing in the higher-risk, higher-reward, end of the stock market pond. Risk-on assets have ripped higher in the last few weeks as geopolitical risks calmed, bringing indexes to an all-time high and seeing meme-like stocks soar on speculative excitement rather than business fundamentals. Just from last week, we’ve seen Allbirds and Myseum skyrocket on a surprise AI pivot news. Retail favorites like quantum name IonQ have also caught a bid.

But, where Beyond’s concerned, this ain't 2021 yet. And it's still nowhere near last October, either:

Per Bloomberg data, there’s still plenty of interest in betting against the company — short interest as a percent of the equity float is at 35% — but it still pales compared to the 83% level from its October high.

In simple volume terms, BYND traded only some $224 million as of yesterday — a tiny fraction of October’s busiest day, when $11 billion changed hands.

J. Edward Moreno33m

UnitedHealth beats Q1 estimates, raises annual outlook

UnitedHealth rose in premarket trading after it reported earnings results that beat Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year guidance.

For the full year 2026, the company now expects:

Annual adjusted earnings per share to be at least $18.25, up from the previous floor it set at $17.75, and higher than the $17.86 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

For the first quarter of 2026, the company reported:

Adjusted earnings per share of $7.23 , higher than the $6.58 the Street was penciling in.
A medical cost ratio of 83.9%, lower than the 85.5% that was expected.

The company, which is the first of its peers to report earnings this quarter, was up more than 6% in early action on Tuesday. The stock is down 3.8% from the start of the year through yesterday's close.

Max Knoblauch13h

Alaska Air expects higher fuel costs to add $600 million in expenses in Q2

Alaska Airlines on Monday kicked off a big week for airline earnings, reporting its first-quarter results after the bell. The stock ticked down after hours.

Alaska Air reported:

An adjusted loss of $1.68 per share, compared to Wall Street estimates of a loss of $1.65 per share.
$3.3 billion in revenue, compared to estimates of $3.29 billion.
A 17% year-over-year increase in fuel costs to $796 million.

Looking ahead, Alaska said it expects a second-quarter loss per share of $1, deeper than the Wall Street consensus (-$0.15). The company expects April fuel costs of $4.75/gallon and for fuel across the second quarter to add $600 million in expenses.

“Absent the fuel price spike, we would have guided to a solidly profitable quarter,” the airline said in its release.

Alaska Air, like the rest of the commercial airline industry, has been pummeled by fuel costs since the beginning of the war in Iran. Along with Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue, the carrier recently hiked its bag fees to offset higher fuel costs.