Speculation regarding the expected initial public offerings (IPOs) of two artificial intelligence (AI) giants – OpenAI and Anthropic – has slowly been turning into fact in recent months, with the former postponing the move to 2027 and the latter apparently gearing up to hit the market after the November U.S. midterm elections.
Specifically, Reuters reviewed Anthropic’s IPO prospectus, per a September 28 article published by the outlet.
The firm appears to not only be preparing to become the first pure AI play available to investors, but is hoping to hit the stock market at a record-breaking $2 trillion valuation.
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Notably, if the reporting proves correct, it would mean that SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) would lose its IPO valuation record – roughly $1.7 trillion – less than six months after setting it.
Additionally, it would mean Anthropic’s value soared 107.25% from $965 billion in May, which was itself a massive jump from $380 billion in February.
Anthropic’s revenue soared more than 1,000% from 2024 to 2025
Simultaneously, the prospectus contains a wide variety of concerning numbers and claims for hopeful investors.
To begin with, Anthropic appears to have recorded $4.6 billion in revenue in 2025 – allegedly a 1,088% increase from 2024 – but also lost a total of $42 billion during the year. Additionally, as much as a quarter of the sales were directly linked to two clients without long-term contracts.
Crucially, however, a significant part of the losses – $34 billion – are apparently in the form of an accounting charge, rather than the expenses of running the AI firm.
Still, the operating loss was also massive at $8.06 billion – more than double the $2.98 billion in 2024, but also less steep relative to sales.
Back on the negative side, Anthropic also disclosed plans to spend more than $500 billion on infrastructure, computing, and cloud obligations in the coming years – a tall order even with the improving revenue and the $20 billion held on December 31 in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.
Why investors should take Anthropic’s numbers with a grain of salt
Meanwhile, earlier reporting about the AI company’s financials simultaneously offers some reprieve to hopeful investors, but also additional cause for doubt.
Anthropic told investors its annual revenue run rate rose above $65 billion in July, signalling the company will have managed another 1,313% increase in sales between 2025 and 2026, per a mid-August Reuters report.
The article, however, also compared the new number to an alleged $9 billion in 2025 – an annual revenue run rate roughly twice as high as the sales disclosed in the prospectus.
This apparent discrepancy emphasizes both that Anthropic’s numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, and further underlines that annualized numbers are a manipulation-prone metric: a company can select its strongest, for example, week and multiply it by 52, thus arguably misrepresenting its actual success.
Why Anthropic IPO at $2 trillion might not happen
Lastly, and between the positive and negative factors, the $2 trillion IPO market capitalization remains speculative, despite being relatively widely accepted.
At press time on September 29, Anthropic was facing steep competition from OpenAI, multiple American technology giants, and open-source models, making a premium valuation a difficult sell, as a report by New Constructs detailed already in July.
Traders might come to a similar conclusion given that OpenAI is, allegedly, locked in something of a struggle in its most recent funding round, since it is seeking a $1.5 trillion valuation, while investors are offering $1.2 trillion, showing the numbers are stretched already at half of Anthropic’s desired $2 trillion.
Featured image via Shutterstock