Anthropic PBC’s initial public offering is laying bare the stark extremes of the multi-trillion-dollar AI boom business model: astonishing growth paired with uncertainty about demand and the spending required to continue developing the technology. The startup, which publicly filed IPO paperwork on Monday, is poised to be the first major US firm focused solely on building AI software to make its market debut.
The filing offers proof of the billions of dollars in sales per year that Anthropic's products generate, but also puts forth hard questions about its extreme losses, profitability, government intervention, and the potential for catastrophic harms that are specific to cutting-edge AI developers.
Just five years into its existence, Anthropic is expected to raise more money in its IPO than any firm in history and overtake Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in market value. Its valuation has surged from $183 billion a little over a year ago to $965 billion in its most recent round, with early expectations that the company could be worth upwards of nearly $2 trillion once it goes public — creating a massive windfall, even for employees and investors who got into the company somewhat late.
Its public market performance might cement or capsize Wall Street’s confidence in the trillion-dollar AI boom at a moment when investors are increasingly anxious about the borrowing binge underpinning it. More than any other companies, Anthropic and archrival OpenAI have set the pace for global AI development. Anthropic has also put itself at the center of a complex web of interconnected investments from leading chipmakers and cloud providers that are helping to prop up the entire sector and the US economy.
“This will really be investors’ first significant opportunity to invest directly in the company that is driving the AI economy,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at DA Davidson. “It’s of monumental importance.”