LLM Reference
GCP Vertex AI

Using Claude Opus 5.5 on GCP Vertex AI

Implementation guide · Claude 5.5 · Anthropic

Serverless

GCP Vertex AI exposes Claude Opus 5.5 through model ID claude-opus-5-5. Use the setup steps, sourced pricing, capabilities, and official provider links below to validate this route before deployment.

Last refreshed 2026-09-22. Next refresh: weekly.

Quick Start

  1. 1
    Create an account at GCP Vertex AI and generate an API key.
  2. 2
    Use the GCP Vertex AI SDK or REST API to call claude-opus-5-5 — see the documentation for request format.
  3. 3
    You'll be billed $4.00/1M input, $20.00/1M output tokens. See full pricing.

Code Examples

Install
pip install google-cloud-aiplatform
API key
GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT
Model ID
claude-opus-5-5

For Google-published models use the model name directly, e.g. "gemini-2.0-flash-001". For third-party publishers (Anthropic, Meta, etc.) use the full publisher path, e.g. "publishers/anthropic/models/claude-3-5-sonnet-v2@20241022".

import os
import vertexai
from vertexai.generative_models import GenerativeModel

# Reads GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT from env; authenticates via Application Default Credentials
vertexai.init(project=os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"], location="us-central1")
model = GenerativeModel("claude-opus-5-5")
response = model.generate_content("Hello")
print(response.text)

Pricing on GCP Vertex AI

TypePrice (per 1M)
Input tokens$4.00
Output tokens$20.00

Capabilities

VisionMultimodalReasoningJSON / Tool useStructured OutputsPrompt CachingBatch API

About Claude Opus 5.5

Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, first model in the Claude 5.5 family, released September 22, 2026. First-party positioning: long-running agentic coding and knowledge work; performs at the level of Claude Fable 5.1 on most work; typical workloads about 40% less cost than Opus 5 at default settings (list input/output 20% below Opus 5; cache reads 60% below). Claude API id claude-opus-5-5. List price $4 per 1M input and $20 per 1M output; cache reads $0.20 per 1M tokens (0.05x base input); 5-minute cache writes $5; 1-hour cache writes $8; Batch API 50% off ($2/$10).

Model Specs

Released2026-09-22
Context1.05m
ArchitectureDecoder Only
Knowledge cutoff2026-06

Provider

GCP Vertex AI
GCP Vertex AI

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Mountain View, California, United States