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Anthropic prepares for potential $2 trillion IPO valuation after reporting billions in revenue — company warns AI could pose ‘catastrophic existential risks to humanity’ Anthropic is eyeing a $2 trillion IPO valuation while warning its AI models could pose catastrophic risks to humanity Claude maker Anthropic has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the AI company at around $2 trillion, setting the stage for one of the biggest potential stock market debuts in the technology industry, the company announced today. As per Form S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm intends to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ‘ANT’, although the number of shares to be offered and the price range have yet to be determined. A report from Reuters suggests the company could seek to raise as much as $100 billion, but those figures are not confirmed offering terms. On to numbers, Anthropic generated $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, up sharply from approximately $1.2 billion in the same period last year. The company’s operating performance also improved, although its reported net loss reached $80.7 billion. Despite the losses, it disclosed enormous commitments to AI computing infrastructure and outlined risks that investors will have to weigh against its rapid growth. That net loss, however, requires context. It should not be interpreted as $80.7 billion in cash spent running the business, since accounting adjustments related to financing instruments contributed substantially to the reported figure. Even so, Anthropic cautions that its revenue growth rate “may not be sustainable” and could decline. The company also warns that it may need additional financing sooner than expected and does not anticipate paying dividends in the foreseeable future. Those disclosures will matter to investors considering a company whose expansion depends on access to increasingly expensive computing resources. Beyond figures, Anthropic’s filing contains warnings about the technology underpinning its business. The company says advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” including scenarios involving dangerous capabilities, deceptive behavior, and systems that become difficult for humans to control. “Our development of highly advanced models, platforms, and applications and expansion of use cases could further increase the risk that our models cause harm,” Anthropic’s S-1 prospectus stated. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. However, the firm said it is developing safeguards to mitigate AI risks through pre-release testing, red-team assessments, and systems designed to detect harmful outputs. It also said it may delay training or restrict model releases when safety measures are insufficient, while acknowledging that its efforts may not succeed. Bloomberg Intelligence technology research head Mandeep Singh discussed the disclosures in a Bloomberg segment following the filing. He characterized worst-case scenarios as typical of risk disclosures for emerging technology companies preparing to go public, noting that such language helps address potential liabilities. He also pointed to Anthropic’s improving compute efficiency and an improvement in gross margins as a positive signal for investors. “Gross margins are inching closer to 50%, whereas just a quarter back… it was like… sub 20%.” He stated. Meanwhile, Anthropic expects to spend up to $120.5 billion on compute involving SpaceXAI and Nvidia, alongside up to $114.5 billion with Google through 2033. Notably, while those massive infrastructure commitments are essential to training and running advanced AI models, they could become a costly burden if demand falls short of expectations. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has also been preparing for a potential IPO, doubling down on efforts to scale revenue and computing capacity ahead of a possible debut. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in September that the company would not go public in 2026, citing concerns about AI safety and saying the company had more work to do before pursuing a listing. Elsewhere, Cerebras, which develops wafer-scale processors for AI workloads, completed its Nasdaq IPO in May after filing for a second time. Still, Anthropic acknowledges that its growth may slow and that its financing needs could arrive sooner than expected. That said, Anthropic is reportedly targeting a mid-November IPO, with November 19 or 20 floated as possible listing dates. However, the company has yet to confirm a timetable for the offering. Newton Gitonga is a tech journalist covering gadgets, PC hardware, AI, data centers, and the wider tech industry. His interest in technology started early, taking apart things around the house to see how they worked, often to his dad’s frustration. His curiosity sometimes got the better of him, including a few failed attempts to fix laptops, one of them a gifted Dell XPS. He has previously written for Notebookcheck, ZyCrypto, CoinCentral, and Crypto News Flash. - Jabberwocky79 Not gonna lie, up $16.3 billion from $1.2 billion YOY is almost as staggering as the investment costs.Reply - bill001g People need to treat buying shares of this company like buying a lottery ticket. Now that the company is going public we will see a lot more actual numbers. Even in this article they admit they lost 80billion and just kinda mention all the risks from the long term commitments they have to spend money for say rent on data centers and equipment loans. It will be interesting to see what they plan to do with the 100billion they get from issuing stock. All depends on if this money goes to the AI bros who provided some of the original funding or if they will pay down actual debt or pay for the large bills coming due in the near future. It is not uncommon for these so called vulture, err venture, capitalists to take the money and run leaving the new stockholder holding a empty bag. Reply - cknobman This will eventually go down as one of the biggest "rug pulls" in history. Sure some will make lots of money but many many more will get suckered into losing lots of money investing in this scam stock (just like most of the other AI stocks). Reply - vanadiel007 I ran out of zero's trying to imagine 2 trillion USD. Soon we will be seeing evaluations in the range of quadrillions. I actually had to Google what comes after trillion. There is not even enough physical money in circulation to back up all these evaluations. I thought Bitcoin valuation was crazy, but it seems it's perfectly reasonable... Reply - alan.campbell99 Any revenue numbers they provide should be in question if it's anything other than GAAP. They won't though, they prefer Annualised Run Rate nonsense which is never specified or detailed, it can literally be them taking their best day and multiply by 365. That is not valid revenue reporting and any investors/reporters with brain cells to share between them should be questioning it. Though even with juicing their revenue reporting like that they're still incinerating cash to make any of it. Reply - LordVile Jabberwocky79 said:Not gonna lie, up $16.3 billion from $1.2 billion YOY is almost as staggering as the investment costs.You have to think where it’s come from though and it’s revenue not profit. They can “sell” Nvidia something when “buying” GPUs and it bumps up their revenue. I could sell you a grape and charge you 1 billion for it and you can sell me an apple for 1.1 billion and I’ve made 1bn in revenue and -100 million net. Does it make the fruit worth that much? No. Does the balance sheet care? Also no. Reply
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