Anthropic has become the first AI startup to join Frontier, a carbon removal coalition backed by Stripe, Google, and Shopify. The group announced $915 million in new commitments, bringing total pledges to $1.8 billion. Salesforce also joined in this round. Frontier plans to focus its capital on 10 to 15 long-term offtake deals lasting 8 to 10 years, targeting direct air capture, enhanced weathering, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and biomass removal. Frontier has contracted nearly $700 million across more than 50 projects to remove 1.8 million tons of carbon so far. In 2025, its portfolio delivered about 23,000 tons of removal, with expectations to exceed 50,000 tons in 2026. The coalition now requires new partners to show a realistic path toward government subsidies or compliance revenue. This shift reflects a broader challenge: private buyers are growing the carbon removal market, but long-term scale likely depends on policy support. Anthropic's entry signals growing interest from the AI sector in carbon removal, as companies face scrutiny over the energy demands of their models. The company has not yet published a sustainability report but supports an 'all of the above' energy approach. The broader carbon removal market has grown sharply, with CDR.fyi reporting total credit sales approaching $12 billion.
