Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows the company is placing a massive bet that artificial intelligence will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, the spread of electricity, and the internet combined. But the cost of realizing that vision is astonishingly high.

The prospectus shows Anthropic posted a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and the company plans to spend $518 billion over the coming years on cloud services, computing power, and infrastructure performance contracts. The filing details that the company's business expanded rapidly over the past year, with losses widening sharply in tandem. This first-ever public disclosure shows that 2025 revenue grew 12-fold to nearly $4.6 billion, while operating losses still exceeded $8 billion after excluding write-downs related to liabilities from multiple funding rounds. The listing could value the company at more than $2 trillion.

This AI lab, founded just five years ago, will become the benchmark by which Wall Street assesses the valuations of leading AI companies, including rival OpenAI, thanks to its rapid rise. At the same time, Anthropic's own research has found that increasingly autonomous AI models exhibit unexpected and potentially harmful behavior in controlled tests, including tampering with code, facilitating fraud, and manipulating information. The reports have entered public view, sparking concerns over whether companies can keep increasingly powerful AI systems under control even as they accelerate commercial deployment.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called on the global AI industry to slow the pace of releasing new capabilities in response to these risks. Nevertheless, Anthropic last week still launched its new Opus 5.5 model, aiming to counter momentum after OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra and to pave the way for its own IPO.

The AI lab spent $7.33 billion on computing power and infrastructure last year, triple the figure in 2024, accounting for more than half of its total operating expenses of $12.65 billion for the year. Sources previously cited by Reuters said Anthropic's listing timing will likely be pushed back until after the U.S. midterm elections in November. This IPO will give public investors a stake in the AI race; previously, funding in the sector came mainly from venture capital, sovereign wealth funds, and large technology companies. Anthropic declined to comment.

Targeting a $2 Trillion Valuation

Anthropic is targeting a valuation of more than $2 trillion, more than double its own estimate of $965 billion in May. Of the $42 billion net loss, about $34 billion consists of accounting charges stemming from gains in the value of convertible equity-type financing instruments, not cash the company actually spent on day-to-day operations. The prospectus discloses that nearly a quarter of the company's revenue last year came from two customers. In its risk factors section, Anthropic warns that many large customers have not signed long-term contracts and could cut back or even stop purchasing.

As of December 31, Anthropic held $20.28 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. Anthropic's listing will follow closely on the heels of SpaceX's recent market-stirring IPO, which valued the company at $1.77 trillion. SpaceX shares jumped 19% to $160 on their first day of trading on June 12; the stock now trades around $147, above its IPO offer price of $135. SpaceX's performance will make investors more cautious when assessing the lofty valuations of high-growth companies. AI and chip stocks have recently suffered a sell-off; given Anthropic's ambitious growth expectations, this IPO will further test whether the market's enthusiasm for the AI sector can withstand stricter scrutiny. Despite high interest rates, economic uncertainty, and ongoing valuation disputes, the listing is still expected to cap the strongest year for U.S. IPOs since 2021.

A Trillion-Dollar AI Race

Anthropic's biggest rival remains OpenAI, with the two companies battling fiercely over enterprise customers, talent, and policy influence in Washington. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO in June, and media expect the ChatGPT developer to go public in early 2027. Anthropic was founded by a group of researchers who left the rival company over disagreements about corporate governance and AI safety; it released its first large language model in March 2023, competing directly with OpenAI. At the same time, it is vying with SpaceX's xAI, Google parent Alphabet, and Meta in AI infrastructure buildout.

Analysts believe whichever AI company lists first will set the valuation benchmark for the entire AI industry and attract pure-play investors who have waited years for a direct bet on the AI sector. Amazon and Google are Anthropic's core early strategic investors, each pouring billions of dollars into the startup while providing the cloud infrastructure needed to train and deploy the Claude model. Anthropic and its CEO Amodei have clashed with the White House over model usage, leading the Pentagon to briefly blacklist Anthropic, a ban that a U.S. judge halted in August.