Anthropic nearing blockbuster IPO with final paperwork

The major AI company Anthropic is expected to start selling shares to the public by the middle of November. Its stock market symbol will be ‘ANT’.

Anthropic submitted its final paperwork on 26 October, bringing it closer to a major initial public offering (IPO). An IPO is when a company first sells its shares to the public. The sale is expected to raise $100bn or more, making it one of the largest stock market listings in history. In a statement, Anthropic said its shares would be listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ‘ANT’.

In its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Anthropic did not say how much the company might be worth after the IPO or how many shares it plans to sell. However, earlier reports suggested that the IPO could value the company, which makes Claude, at between $1.5trn and $2trn. Anthropic's most recent funding round, announced earlier this year, valued the company at $965bn.

The AI company began preparing to go public in June, but reports say it has since delayed its plans until the middle of November. In recent years, its most advanced AI models have become widely used in many industries. They also help governments, non-profit groups and other organisations strengthen their cybersecurity and protect their computer systems.

The company's filings show that it earned nearly $16.3bn in revenue in the first half of this year. That is a 1,300pc increase from the $1.1bn it earned during the same period last year. Its operating loss fell by $180bn to $4bn, even though its spending rose sharply. Its net loss was $80.7bn, mainly because of accounting changes linked to financing agreements.

The filings also show that Anthropic has spent more than $19bn on the computer systems and equipment needed for AI since it was founded in 2021, five years ago. The company has made several agreements worth billions of dollars. It has agreed to spend at least $45bn with Microsoft between November 2026 and May 2033. It has also agreed to spend $114.5bn with Google, $110bn with Amazon and up to $120.5bn with SpaceX.

Meanwhile, chipmaker Broadcom announced that it had secured $63bn from major US banks to pay for AI chips for Anthropic. The two companies already have a major joint agreement that gives Anthropic access to 3.5GW of computing power from Google's tensor processing units (TPUs) through Broadcom. Anthropic estimates that it will pay another $125bn to $150bn for extra computing power in the future.

Earlier this month, the company behind Claude also said it would give at least 5pc of its shares to a funding organisation. This organisation will make donations to support “the public good”.