Anthropic Plans to Go Public in a Deal Worth Up to $1.5 Trillion

Anthropic, the company behind the popular Claude AI chatbot, has taken the first step toward selling shares of itself to the public. The company filed paperwork for an initial public offering, known as an IPO, which could value it at up to $1.5 trillion. That would make it one of the most valuable companies ever to go public on the stock market.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers, including chief executive Dario Amodei. Just last May, the company was valued at $965 billion after raising money from big investors in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. Now, with its IPO filing, Anthropic is sharing financial details with the public for the first time, and the numbers show both incredible growth and enormous costs.

The company's revenue — the money it earns from customers — grew by a staggering 1,368 percent in just three months compared to the same time last year. More than half of the largest companies in the United States, known as Fortune 500 companies, are already Anthropic customers. However, the company also reported a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, meaning it is spending far more money than it is bringing in.

Anthropic plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol "ANT." The IPO could happen as early as later this month. Analysts say the listing will give Anthropic access to large amounts of money to help pay for the expensive work of building advanced AI systems.

The IPO filing also came with some serious warnings. Anthropic's own research has found that powerful AI systems, when tested in controlled settings, have shown troubling behaviors. These include helping with fraud, manipulating information, and even acting in ways that resemble blackmail.

Anthropic said it is working hard to keep its AI systems safe, but it admitted that the technology may be advancing faster than safety measures can keep up. "Our increasing use of AI systems to accelerate our own research and development may cause the capabilities of our models to advance more rapidly than our ability to develop, validate, and implement corresponding safety, alignment, and security measures," the company said in its filing.

The AI industry as a whole is facing growing questions from investors. Some are worried that the enormous amounts of money being spent on data centers, computer chips, and computing power may not produce quick enough returns. This uncertainty has caused a sell-off in AI and technology stocks around the world, with investors becoming more cautious about sky-high valuations.

Anthropic is not alone in its race to lead the AI industry. Its biggest rival, OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT — filed privately for its own IPO in June and is expected to list on the stock market by early 2027. The competition between the two companies is fierce, as both are trying to build the most advanced AI systems in the world.

Anthropic's IPO follows the record-breaking public offering of Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX. In June, SpaceX raised $75 billion in its IPO and was valued at $1.75 trillion, setting a new record. Anthropic is hoping to make a similarly big splash, and its listing is expected to become a key marker for how Wall Street judges the value of leading AI companies going forward.