Anthropic IPO: what’s getting people excited and how it could make history

Anthropic has the potential to become the largest ever IPO (initial public offering) in history. There is speculation it could raise up to $100 billion in a US stock market listing in October and command a $2 trillion valuation, potentially eclipsing SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion IPO.

AI is changing the world, and it is exactly the type of big theme that gets investors excited. Even though people have already made significant returns from investing in AI-related companies, there is still a sense that the technology revolution is still in its infancy. Anthropic listing on the stock market could be a major milestone.

Those who got in early when Nvidia transitioned from a gaming chip specialist to powering the AI boom could have generated eye-watering returns in a short space of time. Certain investors will be hoping for similar gains by investing in Anthropic just as it reaches a potential profitability inflection point.

An £1,000 investment in Nvidia five years ago is now worth £10,003. In contrast, £1,000 deposited in a cash savings account five years ago would now be worth £1,167*. The returns from Nvidia shares are a reminder of what is possible with investing, although this is an exception rather than the norm.

What if much of Anthropic’s valuation creation has already happened as a private company? That situation might not stop an army of AI investment fans from looking hard at Anthropic once it becomes a public company. It would be a unique asset on the market, and that itself could command a premium rating.

You might ask why Anthropic could stand out in what is already a crowded field of AI investment opportunities. After all, there are already options for investing in AI-related component providers and adopters.

The answer is simple. Anthropic would be the first large-scale pure-play frontier AI model developer to join the stock market. It would give investors the opportunity to own a slice of a company with different dynamics to current AI favourites Nvidia, TSMC and Broadcom. The definition of a frontier AI company is one that develops advanced AI models and operates near the leading edge of technology.

*Source: FE Analytics. Data to 31 August 2026. Total return in pounds sterling. BlackRock ICS Sterling Liquidity fund performance used as a proxy for cash returns. Excludes dealing and platform charges.

What does Anthropic do?

Anthropic is best known for the Claude chatbot, a large language model (LLM) widely regarded as one of the leading alternatives to ChatGPT.

There is much more to Anthropic than just running a chatbot. It develops AI technology and sells access to enterprises that want to build AI into their products and workflows.

Its technology can code software, conduct research, analyse documents, complete complex tasks to solve problems, operate as a digital assistant, and much more.

Anthropic says its purpose as a business is responsible development of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity.

What is Anthropic’s core investment case?

Rapid adoption of AI around the world creates a tailwind for frontier AI companies – with Anthropic’s reputation of having superior capabilities putting it in a strong position to benefit. It is already seeing knockout sales growth and there is a sense that AI adoption has much further to travel.

A primary focus on enterprise customers rather than consumers means there is greater potential for recurring revenue. Businesses can be stickier customers than the public and more likely to commit to long-term usage. Once businesses have something ingrained in their day-to-day operations, that technology or service can become indispensable and a non-discretionary spend.

Just think why the likes of Apple and Microsoft are so successful. They provide products that people rely on, and they hook customers into their ecosystem with indispensable services.

Another key attraction for prospective investors is Anthropic’s potential to benefit from operational gearing. While it is spending big now to build out its capabilities, in the future it might have a large chunk of fixed costs, meaning profits grow fast when sales increase.

What are the key risks?

Political intervention, regulation and competition are three risks to consider with Anthropic.

There is a live debate over whether AI systems have quickly transitioned from being useful to potentially being dangerous if misused. That is why policymakers are watching the AI industry like a hawk.

The US government temporarily restricted access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models earlier this year due to national security concerns over their cybersecurity capabilities. ChatGPT-owner OpenAI recently said an autonomous AI agent powered by its technology behaved in unintended ways during a test and hacked another business. These types of incidents are a reminder that AI can have a dark side.

There is a growing list of companies vying to be AI market leaders and challenge Anthropic’s market position. In addition to OpenAI, Alphabet is a major player with its Gemini system; Meta earlier this year pivoted from its Llama suite of AI models to a new system called Muse Spark; SpaceX owns xAI and runs the Grok AI assistant; and Microsoft owns the Copilot digital assistant and GitHub Copilot AI programmer.

If that is not enough to keep Anthropic on its toes, China’s technology companies are causing issues. DeepSeek emerged rapidly last year with an AI offering at a fraction of the cost of Western rivals.

Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, Moonshot, Z.ai and MiniMax are snapping at the heels of the major US players as they seek to match their technological capabilities, with many also undercutting them on price.

AI platforms like Anthropic generate revenue by charging customers to access their AI models, often based on the number of tokens processed. A token is a chunk of text or data that an AI system analyses.

Running advanced AI models requires significant computing power, supported by expensive chips and data centres. As these infrastructure costs rise, providers may seek to recover some of the expense through their pricing. Combined with growing demand for AI services, this helps explain the strong revenue growth seen at companies such as Anthropic.

Chinese companies have started a price war, cutting their API token prices dramatically. There are reports that certain US tech firms responded by shifting more complex workloads from expensive Western APIs onto cheaper Chinese models. That raises questions about the future pace of Anthropic’s revenue growth.

It is not just competition from Chinese companies. Anthropic is also seeing Western customers opt for less powerful AI tools as the alternatives can still be effective. There are reports that Fable 5, Anthropic’s largest and most expensive model, is not attracting waves of users – although it is still a new product and it is far too early to judge its success.

Companies are quickly learning they do not need to have the latest shiny model. There are older systems that can function as dependable workhorses. With the debate raging around the growing costs of AI, it can make business sense to see what you can get without spending too much.

Another risk is that today’s enthusiasm for AI proves excessive. If an AI bubble has formed and subsequently bursts, the impact could be severe for pure-play AI companies. Larger technology groups such as Microsoft and Alphabet have substantial businesses beyond AI, providing a degree of diversification. Anthropic does not have that same safety net.

Higher infrastructure costs are another factor to watch. There is also the challenge of reliability. Businesses and consumers are increasingly turning to AI to improve efficiency, but the technology is only as useful as the accuracy of its outputs. Until users can place greater trust in the information it provides, widespread adoption may face constraints. That is an issue the industry needs to address sooner rather than later.

How a potential $100 billion fundraise compares to top IPOs in history?

The size of an IPO is usually measured by the amount of money a company raises when it goes public, not by its overall market value.

SpaceX’s $85.7 billion fundraising in 2026 stands as the biggest IPO in history. If Anthropic were to raise as much as $100 billion, as some have suggested, it would comfortably eclipse that record and rank among the most significant stock market debuts ever seen.