Bankers representing Anthropic and OpenAI are lobbying rating agencies to secure investment-grade credit ratings for both companies following their anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs). Such a designation would significantly reduce borrowing expenses for their large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure projects.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have engaged in discussions with credit rating agencies on behalf of these leading AI laboratories in recent weeks. The objective is to gain access to the $11.7 trillion corporate bond market once the companies go public.

Rating agency analysts indicate that the investment banks representing Anthropic and OpenAI have argued that the IPOs will unlock substantial liquidity and strengthen balance sheets. One senior credit analyst noted: "Wall Street is trying to downplay the overall negative impact of debt, with the argument being that these companies will soon be flush with liquidity."

For these two AI labs, which are not yet profitable, obtaining investment-grade ratings from Fitch, Moody's, and S&P shortly after listing would represent an extraordinary achievement. This would also deliver substantial benefits to their infrastructure partners, including Oracle and Nvidia.

Securing such ratings would enable access to pension funds, insurance companies, and other institutional investors, which typically have limited allocation capacity for speculative-grade debt with higher risk profiles. This development would serve as yet another example of Wall Street breaking long-standing industry conventions to facilitate three of the largest IPOs in history.

When SpaceX went public in June, it became the first major tech company to secure an investment-grade rating immediately upon listing. Elon Musk's aerospace group also benefited from index rule changes, which triggered billions of dollars in passive fund inflows tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices. In contrast, tech giants like Meta, Netflix, and Tesla waited a decade or longer after going public before earning top-tier credit ratings.

Sources indicate that negotiations regarding credit ratings for OpenAI and Anthropic are still ongoing, with no final decisions reached. Neither company has publicly disclosed its IPO roadmap.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI have recently secured substantial credit facilities with major banks. However, their multi-billion-dollar expenditures on specialized chips and data centers—essential for training and running AI models—remain primarily funded by institutional investors and venture capital.

The two AI labs have previously leveraged the investment-grade credit ratings of their partners to secure favorable borrowing terms for debt related to their infrastructure projects. However, in recent months, growing concerns over escalating AI project debt levels have driven up borrowing costs.

Achieving investment-grade status would grant both companies access to broader capital sources and more advantageous borrowing conditions. Rating agency analysts will wait to review the IPO outcomes before making their determinations.

Both companies are currently unprofitable, showing little indication of generating positive free cash flow. They also face intensifying risks, including the emergence of competitive open-weight models from China. Another senior credit analyst remarked: "We still view OpenAI and Anthropic as deeply speculative entities... Both companies are currently in a loss-making position."

The credit ratings of OpenAI and Anthropic are critical for their technology giant partners, which have already provided hundreds of billions of dollars in guarantees on the assumption that these AI labs will soon achieve independent financing capabilities. Documents show that the $105 billion credit support provided by Nvidia for OpenAI's large-scale data center in Ohio will terminate once the startup secures a "qualifying credit rating."