[New York = E-Daily Correspondent Seong Joowon ] Anthropic, the developer of the artificial intelligence (AI) model “Claude,” is set to launch its initial public offering (IPO) as early as mid-November. With an estimated valuation of up to $2 trillion (approximately 2,720 trillion won), this is set to be a massive IPO. The company appears to be pressing ahead with its plan to go public this year despite recent concerns about AI safety and a sluggish U.S. IPO market.

On the 1st (local time), Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Anthropic is pushing for an IPO as early as mid-November. The schedule calls for the company to begin formal IPO marketing to investors as early as the week starting November 9, with trading set to begin before Thanksgiving on November 26. Trading in the U.S. capital markets typically slows significantly around Thanksgiving.
However, as discussions are still ongoing, the schedule is subject to change. Bloomberg reported that Anthropic plans to complete its IPO by the end of the year at the latest. Anthropic officially announced last June that it had privately filed a draft registration statement (Form S-1) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its IPO. At the time, the company stated that the number of shares to be offered and the offering price had not yet been determined, and that the actual IPO would depend on market conditions and other factors.
Bloomberg reported that the market is estimating Anthropic’s fair market value at between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion. Anthropic also expects the size of its public offering to match or exceed that of Elon Musk’s space company, SpaceX. If all goes according to plan, it is expected to be one of the largest IPOs in history, taking place amid the AI boom.
This valuation is underpinned by explosive revenue growth. Anthropic’s revenue last year reached approximately $4.6 billion, a nearly 12-fold increase from the previous year’s $386 million. However, as massive funds were poured into AI model development and computing infrastructure, operating losses exceeded $8 billion. The net loss expanded to approximately $42 billion, about five times the previous year’s figure of roughly $8.3 billion. However, more than $34 billion of that net loss was an accounting loss resulting from changes in the fair value of debt.
The amount of funding required going forward is also enormous. Anthropic relies heavily on the cloud infrastructure of Big Tech companies such as Amazon and Google, and the value of its long-term hosting and computing contracts totals $417 billion. According to Anthropic’s IPO filings, semiconductor company Broadcom has agreed to lend up to $42 billion to help Anthropic secure computing infrastructure. These funds are expected to cover approximately one-third of the $125.2 billion, five-year TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) computing capacity lease agreement Anthropic has signed with Broadcom.
Ahead of the IPO, AI safety concerns have also emerged as a wild card. Anthropic’s IPO filings devote significant attention to the possibility that while AI can boost productivity and scientific progress, it may also pose serious risks, such as autonomous behavior or loss of control. Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO, also recently published an article arguing for the need to slow the pace of AI model development.
If Anthropic goes public as scheduled, it will be a major deal that bucks the trend in the U.S. IPO market, where schedules have been repeatedly pushed back recently. According to Bloomberg, excluding the record-breaking IPOs of SpaceX and SK hynix(000660), the weighted average return on the approximately 100 new public offerings this year has been a negative (-) 4%. This falls significantly short of the 12% gain in the S&P 500 index and the 20% rise in the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index over the same period.
In particular, with rival OpenAI having postponed its IPO plans, Anthropic’s decision is expected to serve as a litmus test for the market’s investment enthusiasm toward AI companies.