Anthropic logged net loss of over $80 billion in first half of 2026, WSJ reports

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic's logo is shown in this illustration created on May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Oct 20 (Reuters) - AI startup Anthropic had a net loss of more than $80 billion in the first half of this year. This included $72 billion in accounting charges, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing a draft initial public offering prospectus.

According to the report, this compares with a net loss of $13 billion during the same period a year earlier. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Journal reported that most of this year's net loss came from $72 billion in accounting charges. These charges were linked to changes in the value of convertible notes and other financial instruments that the company issued to raise money.

The report comes as investors look more closely at AI companies' finances. These companies are spending large amounts on chips, data centers and computing power to develop and run increasingly powerful AI models.

Anthropic's revenue in the third quarter rose 45% to $16.8 billion compared with the previous quarter, Reuters reported last week. The report cited an investor who attended a meeting with Anthropic's leaders in San Francisco before the company goes public.

Reuters first reported in September that Anthropic had a net loss of $42 billion in 2025 and planned to spend $518 billion on cloud services, computing and infrastructure commitments in the coming years.

Reuters has also reported, citing the documents, that Anthropic's revenue grew 12-fold in 2025 to nearly $4.6 billion. Even so, the company lost more than $8 billion from its operations, not counting reductions in the reported value of various liabilities, most of which were linked to earlier fundraising.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)