Anthropic files for IPO: How the maker of Claude could reshape the AI race

Anthropic has taken a major step towards becoming a publicly traded company, filing confidential paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO). The move could make Anthropic one of the most valuable companies ever to go public and marks a significant moment in the global AI race.

The company, best known for its Claude AI chatbot and coding tools, has not yet disclosed how many shares it plans to sell or at what price. However, its most recent private funding round valued the company at approximately $965 billion, placing it ahead of OpenAI's reported valuation of $852 billion.

Anthropic's IPO

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei and several former OpenAI researchers. Since then, it has grown into one of the biggest challengers to OpenAI in the rapidly expanding AI sector.

The company's Claude family of AI models has gained popularity among businesses, software developers and enterprise customers. Claude Code, in particular, has become widely used among developers for software engineering and programming tasks. Industry analysts say the IPO could provide investors with the first detailed look at Anthropic's finances, revenue streams and operating costs. Until now, much of the company's valuation has been based on expectations about future growth rather than publicly available financial data.

Could Anthropic become the first major AI IPO winner?

Anthropic's filing comes during what could become one of the busiest periods in AI market history. The company joins a growing list of highly anticipated AI-related public offerings, including those from SpaceX and potentially OpenAI. According to analysts at PitchBook, the simultaneous arrival of several mega-sized technology IPOs could create one of the largest concentrations of pre-IPO capital ever seen.

Supporters argue that Anthropic has several advantages heading into public markets. The company has secured major partnerships, including a long-term agreement with Amazon Web Services worth more than $100 billion to support the training and deployment of Claude models. Its valuation has also risen sharply, increasing from around $380 billion earlier this year to approximately $965 billion following its latest funding round.

How does Anthropic compare with OpenAI?

The rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI continues to shape much of the AI industry's competitive landscape. Dario Amodei previously worked at OpenAI before leaving the company and later founding Anthropic. Since then, both firms have competed aggressively for enterprise customers, developers and AI talent.

Anthropic has found particular success among software developers and businesses. According to reports cited in the filing discussion, fintech company Ramp reported that more businesses used Anthropic's tools than OpenAI's for the first time earlier this year. However, OpenAI still maintains a much larger consumer presence. Market research firm Emarketer estimates that around 36.6% of US internet users will use ChatGPT this year, compared with 5.4% for Claude and 27.4% for Google's Gemini. This suggests Anthropic remains stronger in enterprise and developer markets, while OpenAI continues to dominate consumer AI adoption.

Challenges

Despite its rapid growth, Anthropic faces several challenges. The company has faced scrutiny from policymakers and government agencies over some of its advanced AI systems. Its cybersecurity-focused Mythos model has reportedly raised concerns among government officials and security experts because of its ability to identify software vulnerabilities at scale.

Anthropic has also encountered tensions with parts of the US government, including reports that some agencies viewed the company as a supply-chain risk during disputes related to the use of its technology. At the same time, competition is intensifying. OpenAI, Google, Microsoft-backed initiatives and emerging AI startups are all investing heavily in coding assistants, enterprise AI tools and next-generation models.

What does the IPO mean for investors?

An IPO would allow public investors to directly buy shares in Anthropic for the first time. More importantly, it would provide transparency into key financial metrics, including revenue growth, spending on AI infrastructure and profitability. Investors and analysts have increasingly questioned whether AI company valuations are rising faster than underlying business fundamentals. The public listing could therefore become an important test of whether market enthusiasm for AI matches the sector's long-term commercial potential.