Google can take Anthropic’s Kentucky rent. The halls are still a former smelter

TeraWulf said on 4 November that it had signed three credit-support agreements with Google, covering leases with Anthropic at the Justified campus in Hawesville, Kentucky. The company’s words for the money are “approximately $19 billion of contracted lease commitments.” That figure is the rent Anthropic has agreed, over 20 years, for about 401 megawatts of critical IT load. It is not a cheque Google has written, and it is not a loan already drawn. The filing says that if Anthropic misses a payment, or becomes insolvent, Google has the option to pay the rent then due and take the lease, or in some cases to pay a termination fee and take an equity interest in the landlord subsidiary. An option after a default is not a building that is on.

The support itself does not start on the day of the signature. The 8-K says each backstop becomes effective when the final data hall under that lease is handed over, and can end if Anthropic, or an affiliate that has guaranteed the rent, holds an investment-grade rating for at least three months. Delivery of the capacity is expected in phases from late 2027 through the second quarter of 2028. Late 2027 is a date on a page. The same announcement says Fluor has a definitive engineering, procurement and construction agreement, on a guaranteed-maximum-price basis, for three buildings. The release also says that maximum price is still being set as the engineering moves. A contract to build is not a hall with servers in it. Paul Prager, the chief executive, said the point of Google’s support is the cost of capital. A cheaper loan, if one is then raised, is not a megawatt.

Engineering News-Record, reporting the Fluor contract, said work already under way includes demolition, remediation and site preparation, and that the ground is the former Century Aluminum smelter. Clearing an industrial plot is not 401 megawatts of computing.