Anthropic is pushing ahead with plans for a potentially historic initial public offering, with the AI company now preparing for a possible November stock-market debut as its annualized revenue races toward $100 billion.
The company could make its IPO filing public within the next several weeks and begin trading as early as November, according to the New York Times, citing people familiar with the preparations.
That timetable is later than some investors had previously anticipated, with expectations having centered on a potential October offering.
If completed at the valuations currently being discussed, Anthropic’s listing could become the largest IPO in history, transforming the AI developer into one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded technology companies.
Anthropic Revenue Could Top $100 Billion
The financial case behind the enormous potential valuation rests largely on Anthropic’s extraordinary revenue growth.
The company’s annualized revenue reached approximately $65 billion in July and is expected to exceed $100 billion by the end of 2026, according to the New York Times.
That would represent an enormous increase for a company whose commercial business has expanded rapidly alongside enterprise adoption of its Claude AI models.
Investors considering a valuation of roughly $2 trillion are betting that this growth can continue as businesses increasingly use artificial intelligence for coding, research, data analysis and other knowledge-work applications.
At $100 billion in annualized revenue, a $2 trillion valuation would represent roughly 20 times that revenue run rate.
The potential IPO would also give public-market investors direct exposure to one of the largest independent developers of frontier AI models.
Anthropic Needs Billions for Computing Infrastructure
Going public could provide Anthropic with access to enormous amounts of capital at a time when developing frontier AI has become increasingly expensive.
Computing infrastructure represents one of the industry’s largest costs.
Anthropic is expected to have access to approximately 5 gigawatts of computing capacity by the end of this year, according to the Times. The company plans to roughly double that amount next year.
Five gigawatts is an extraordinary amount of power for a single technology company and illustrates how quickly the economics of AI development are changing.
Training and operating increasingly capable models requires vast data centers filled with advanced AI accelerators, along with enormous electricity, cooling and networking infrastructure.
An IPO could therefore serve not only as a liquidity event for existing shareholders but also as a way to finance Anthropic’s escalating infrastructure requirements.
IPO Moves Forward Despite AI Safety Debate
The aggressive IPO timetable arrives as CEO Dario Amodei publicly argues that the AI industry should slow development of some of its most advanced systems.
Amodei has warned repeatedly about the risks associated with increasingly capable artificial intelligence and has advocated stronger safeguards around frontier models.
That creates an unusual tension for Anthropic.
The company is simultaneously asking investors to finance one of the fastest expansions of AI infrastructure in history while its chief executive argues that the industry needs greater caution over how the most powerful systems are developed.
Anthropic has positioned safety as a central part of its identity since it was founded by former OpenAI employees.
The debate does not appear to have stopped preparations for a public listing.
Anthropic Could Reach Wall Street Before OpenAI
The timing could also give Anthropic a significant advantage over its largest private rival.
OpenAI has ruled out an IPO in 2026, with CEO Sam Altman saying the company needs additional progress on AI safety, alignment and its relationship with governments before moving forward with a public listing.
That potentially leaves Anthropic as the first major frontier AI laboratory of its generation to reach public markets.
For investors, the offering would provide a rare opportunity to directly own shares in a company developing foundation AI models rather than gaining indirect exposure through cloud providers, semiconductor manufacturers or strategic investors.
But the scale of the proposed valuation also creates enormous expectations.
A roughly $2 trillion valuation would place Anthropic among the world’s most valuable companies before it has established a long record as a public business.
Its ability to justify that valuation will depend on whether revenue continues growing rapidly enough to offset the extraordinary cost of computing infrastructure.
For now, Anthropic appears willing to test that proposition in public markets.
If the company files within the coming weeks and begins trading in November, Wall Street could soon witness not only the largest AI IPO ever attempted, but potentially the largest initial public offering in history.
