Anthropic market debut could break SpaceX IPO record

A new artificial intelligence start-up called Anthropic, a fierce competitor to OpenAI, is poised to shatter the record set by SpaceX when it goes public. SpaceX's June IPO valued the company at $1.77 trillion and raised $85.7 billion, the largest ever. According to Bloomberg, Anthropic, the brains behind Claude AI models, aims to match or surpass SpaceX's deal size, potentially raising over $100 billion and valuing the company at $2 trillion.

This would more than double Anthropic's previous valuation of $965 billion, achieved in its last funding round in June. Such a feat would place Anthropic among an elite group of companies, like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, that have exceeded the $2 trillion threshold. Anthropic has yet to respond to AFP's inquiries about the potential IPO.

Following its public filing in June, the company may unveil its prospectus in the coming weeks, with shares potentially trading in the autumn. If Anthropic succeeds, it could outpace OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which plans to list shares in 2027. Anthropic, founded by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei and other ex-OpenAI executives in 2021, has positioned itself as a safety-first alternative in the AI competition.

Anthropic's flagship product, Claude Code, a coding assistant for developers, has become a fan favorite, driving projected annual revenues to $47 billion. However, the company's success has been hampered by struggles to meet demand for computing power due to a chip and server shortage. Potential investors may be deterred by Anthropic's contentious relationship with the former Trump administration.

In March, the government terminated its contracts with Anthropic and labeled the firm a supply chain risk after the AI company refused to grant the military unrestricted access to its AI models, which the government deemed unconstitutional retaliation.