SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won has confirmed that Anthropic is developing its own computing power — a move that involves $50 billion in US data centers and custom AI chips. The disclosure, made by the head of the South Korean conglomerate, marks the first public acknowledgment of the scale of the AI company's infrastructure ambitions.
The $50 Billion Infrastructure Bet
Anthropic's plans center on building massive data center capacity across the United States, with a price tag that rivals the construction budgets of the largest tech companies. The $50 billion figure covers not just real estate and hardware, but also the development of custom semiconductors designed specifically for the company's AI workloads. Chey Tae-won did not specify a timeline for the build-out or which US locations are under consideration.
SK Group is a major player in the semiconductor industry through its SK Hynix subsidiary, which manufactures memory chips used in AI systems. The chairman's confirmation suggests a deepening relationship between the two firms beyond simple supply agreements.
Custom Silicon Strategy
By designing its own chips, Anthropic joins a small but growing club of AI companies that have decided specialized hardware is essential to staying competitive. The custom chips are expected to be tailored to the specific demands of training and running large language models, potentially offering better performance and energy efficiency than off-the-shelf alternatives.
The move comes as demand for AI compute continues to outpace supply. Existing data center operators have struggled to secure enough graphics processing units — the chips most commonly used for AI — from suppliers like Nvidia. Anthropic's in-house approach could help insulate it from those shortages, though building a new chip from scratch is a multi-year endeavor that carries its own risks.
Neither Anthropic nor SK Group has released technical specifications for the custom chips or the data centers. The project's ultimate scale — measured in square feet, megawatts, or chip counts — remains undisclosed.
The confirmation from Chey Tae-won is the strongest signal yet that Anthropic intends to own its hardware stack from the silicon up. Whether the $50 billion investment will be enough to compete with rivals who have already begun similar efforts is an open question — one that only execution over the coming years will answer.
