Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs

Anthropic is making a massive bet that AI will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialisation, electricity and the internet, according to its IPO prospectus seen by Reuters.

But the cost to get there will be staggering. Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming years, according to the prospectus.

The prospectus details how the company has grown sharply in the last year, while also posting wider losses. Revenue grew 12-fold in 2025 to nearly $4.6 billion, even as the company lost more than $8 billion on an operating basis, excluding write-downs of various liabilities mostly tied to previous fundraising, according to the documents reported here for the first time.

The public sale, which could value it at more than $2 trillion, would capitalise on the rapid rise of the AI startup lab that only came into existence five years ago, and establish it as a benchmark for how Wall Street values AI's leading companies, including rival OpenAI.

The plans come as Anthropic confronts evidence from its own research that increasingly autonomous AI models can behave in unexpected and potentially harmful ways, including sabotaging code, assisting fraud and manipulating information in controlled tests.

These reports have broken into the wider public sphere, igniting fears over how companies can keep the increasingly powerful systems under control as they race to deploy them commercially.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for the global AI community to slow the pace of releasing new capabilities to address those concerns. Still, Anthropic rolled out its new Opus 5.5 model last week to counter OpenAI's momentum since its launch of GPT-6 Astra, ahead of its own expected IPO.

The AI lab spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure last year, a threefold surge from 2024, accounting for more than half of its $12.65 billion in total operating expenses.

Anthropic's public market debut is likely to be pushed to after the November US midterm elections, Reuters previously reported, citing sources. The sale would bring public investors into an AI race that has been until now underwritten by venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds and Big Tech companies.

Anthropic declined to comment.

A $2 trillion valuation expected

Anthropic's expected valuation target is more than double its own estimated valuation of $965 billion in May.

The near-$42 billion net loss included a roughly $34 billion accounting charge that reflected an increase in the estimated value of financing that could eventually turn into Anthropic shares, rather than money the company spent running its business.

Anthropic said nearly a quarter of its revenue came from two customers last year, and as part of its risk factors, warned that many of its largest clients were not locked into long-term contracts and could cut or stop spending.

Anthropic had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totalling $20.28 billion as of 31 December, the prospectus shows.

Anthropic's debut would follow SpaceX's recent blockbuster IPO that valued Elon Musk's company at $1.77 trillion.

That company's shares surged 19% in their 12 June debut to $160, but currently trade at around $147, above where the IPO sold at $135 apiece.

That performance could give investors pause as they assess the still-lofty valuations for high-growth companies. AI and chip stocks have sold off recently, and Anthropic's sale will further test whether enthusiasm for the AI trade can withstand greater scrutiny, given its ambitious growth projections.

Still, the listing stands to cap one of the strongest years for US IPOs since 2021, despite elevated interest rates, economic uncertainty and valuation concerns.

The trillion-dollar AI race

Anthropic's biggest challenger remains OpenAI, as the two firms fiercely compete for business customers, talent and influence in Washington. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO in June. The ChatGPT maker is expected to list by early 2027, according to media reports.

Anthropic was founded by researchers who left its rival after disagreements over governance and AI safety. It released its first large language model in March 2023, competing directly with OpenAI.

It also competes with SpaceX's xAI, Alphabet's Google, and Meta to build out AI infrastructure.

Analysts expect the first company to go public to establish valuation benchmarks for the AI industry and attract investors who have waited years for a pure-play way to bet on the technology.

Amazon and Google were two of Anthropic's early key strategic partners. Both companies have invested billions of dollars into the startup while simultaneously supplying cloud infrastructure needed to train and deploy Claude models.

Anthropic and CEO Amodei have clashed with the White House over the use of its tools, which led to the Pentagon temporarily blacklisting Anthropic, a move blocked by a US judge in August.