Anthropic Files for IPO, Reporting $16.3 Billion in Revenue and an $80.7 Billion Loss
The Claude maker's S-1 shows revenue growing more than tenfold in a year, a ticker of ANT on the Nasdaq, and a warning that AI could slip out of human control.
Anthropic filed publicly for an initial public offering on Monday, putting the maker of the Claude AI platform a step closer to a stock market debut that investors are treating as a test of the entire artificial intelligence boom.
In its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it generated $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, up from $1.2 billion in the same period last year. Anthropic cautioned that growth of that pace is likely to slow over time. It has not turned a profit: the filing shows a net loss of $80.7 billion for the first six months of the year, more than six times the nearly $13 billion it lost in the first two quarters of 2025.
Much of that money went into computing power. Anthropic spent $8.9 billion in the first half on chips and other infrastructure to run its platform, compared with $2.3 billion a year earlier. The company said its future growth depends on continued access to enough capital, including debt financing, which a growing number of companies are using to pay for the AI buildout.
"We believe the diffusion of AI through the global economy represents one of the largest opportunities in history to improve how humans live and work, and it is just beginning," the company wrote. In a letter included in the filing, its seven co-founders, including CEO Dario Amodei, urged prospective buyers not to think of a purchase in purely transactional terms and described the arrival of machine intelligence as one of the seminal moments in human history.
Anthropic will list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ANT. Market analysts expect the offering as early as November, and reports say it could raise as much as $100 billion. That would top the record $86 billion Elon Musk's SpaceX raised when it went public in June. Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May and could land at $1.5 trillion or even $2 trillion, though no final valuation has been set.
"This IPO is a referendum on the entire AI trade," Nigel Green, CEO of the investment firm deVere Group, said in an email. "If it soars, expect a queue of AI listings and even more capital piling into the theme. If it stumbles, valuations across tech could reset fast." Analysts at the advisory firm Lightshed were blunter in a note ahead of the filing: Anthropic could become the most valuable company in the world, they wrote, or it could end up in bankruptcy.
The prospectus also lists risks. One is what the company calls recursive self-improvement, the practice of using existing AI models to design and train the next generation. Anthropic said that if it fails to put enough computing power and research effort into AI-assisted development, or if competitors use AI to speed up their own innovation more effectively, it risks falling progressively behind. AI experts warn that building ever more powerful models with AI raises the danger of people losing control of the technology.
Anthropic filed a confidential IPO application with the SEC in June, beating rival OpenAI, which filed just over a week later. Both are pressing ahead despite concerns about the threats AI poses. In September, Amodei called for a slowdown in AI development after a former researcher at his company said there is a 10% chance the technology could wipe out humanity within a decade. In an interview with CBS News, Amodei said the pace of technological growth should serve as a warning sign while making the case for continued development.
