Investors question Anthropic's planned R$ 8.19 trillion valuation for its IPO

Anthropic, one of the prominent global artificial intelligence companies and creator of the Claude assistant, announced on Monday (26th) its intention to conduct an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the US stock exchange. This move could stand out as one of the largest market operations and will serve as a test to see if the rapid growth of the AI sector can translate into profitability.

The company's financial data shows robust revenue growth, although accompanied by billions in losses and the high costs inherent in developing increasingly sophisticated AI systems. Considering the dollar exchange rate at R$ 5.6048, in the first half of 2026, Anthropic reported a net loss of US$ 80.7 billion (equivalent to R$ 452.3 billion), while its revenues totaled approximately US$ 16.3 billion (R$ 91.4 billion).

According to Anthropic itself, a significant portion of this loss is linked to the appreciation of debt securities that have conversion rights into the company's shares. This change increases the value of these obligations in accounting records but does not imply that all this value has been withdrawn from the company's cash flow.

Despite the recorded losses, Anthropic demonstrated a significant increase in sales. Specifically, between April and June, the company's revenue grew by 1,368% compared to the same period in 2025, driven by the growing demand for artificial intelligence tools.

This advance occurs in a scenario of intense competition among technology giants to create more advanced systems, which demands massive investments in infrastructure, equipment, and data processing centers. Anthropic formally recognized in its documents that these expenses tend to increase and will remain among its primary expenses in the coming years.

What is Anthropic's valuation?

Founded in 2021 by a collective of researchers, Anthropic was valued at US$ 965 billion (R$ 5.41 trillion) in May, during an investment round that attracted important figures from the financial and technology sectors. Key partners include Amazon and Google, which injected billions of dollars into the company and provide part of the essential infrastructure for creating and operating the Claude models.

More recently, some investors have begun to reevaluate the company at around US$ 1.5 trillion, a figure lower than the approximately US$ 2 trillion estimated a week earlier, as reported by Reuters. This revision reflects uncertainties about the ability of AI companies to generate sufficient profits to cover the sector's high investments.

The public offering aims to allow Anthropic to sell shares to the public and thus raise funds to sustain its expansion. The company plans to list its shares on Nasdaq, the American stock exchange known for concentrating large technology corporations, using the ticker ANT. However, the documents released on Monday do not yet specify the number of shares to be offered or the expected price for each one.

Artificial Intelligence Risks

In addition to financial challenges, Anthropic pointed out risks associated with the development of progressively more powerful AI systems. Tests conducted in controlled environments revealed worrying behaviors in advanced models, such as attempts to manipulate data, resistance to shutdown, and actions analogous to blackmail. These findings raise questions about how to ensure that these tools remain under human supervision as they gain autonomy to perform tasks.

Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, has already expressed support for the industry adopting greater prudence regarding the release of new AI functionalities. Simultaneously, the company continues to compete with OpenAI, responsible for ChatGPT, in the race to develop the most advanced models on the market. OpenAI also filed a confidential IPO request in June and anticipates its debut on the stock exchange by early 2027.

The Market Questions AI Investment Returns

Anthropic's potential debut comes amid increased investor caution regarding artificial intelligence companies. After years of great optimism about the technology's potential, the market has begun to doubt whether the trillions of dollars allocated to building data centers, acquiring chips, and expanding processing capacity will yield adequate financial returns.

Increased corporate debt and financing costs also contribute to this apprehension. Anthropic's public offering should serve as a benchmark for investors to assess how much they are willing to pay for companies that show rapid growth but still face high costs to develop their innovations.

The coordination of this operation will be carried out by a consortium of Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Anthropic filed its initial public offering (IPO) application in the US on Monday. In the document, the company outlined its intentions to create artificial intelligence systems capable of transforming the global economy while addressing the difficulties and costs associated with developing this technology.

The prospectus highlights Anthropic's rapid growth over the past year, which has been fueled by aggressive spending from major tech companies. This has led to an increase in the valuation of AI companies' stocks but has also raised concerns about inflated valuations and growing debt burdens.

This listing is expected to set Anthropic, the lab behind the viral Claude models, as a benchmark for valuing leading AI companies on Wall Street, including its competitor OpenAI. Although the IPO schedule has become less crowded due to market volatility prompting companies to postpone offerings, Anthropic continues to pursue its IPO plans.

The offering will allow Anthropic to access significant capital to fund expensive ambitions in AI, which require substantial investment in computational infrastructure for creating and operating complex models.

Safety Concerns

There is a sharp decline in the global stock market as investors express concern over the debt-fueled AI investment bubble. Doubts are emerging as to whether the trillions invested in data centers, chips, and computing power can generate profits quickly enough to support high valuations. This is compounded by caution stemming from rising borrowing costs and increasing bond yields.

Some current and potential investors value Anthropic at approximately $1.5 trillion, which is lower than the $2 trillion level seen last week after the AI startup disclosed some financial details at a recent investor event.

The IPO comes amid Anthropic's own research, which raises concerns about advanced AI systems. In controlled tests, these systems have exhibited behaviors such as code sabotage, assistance in fraud, and information manipulation. These results intensify anxiety over how companies will control increasingly powerful AI systems as they are commercially deployed.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called on the global AI community to slow down the release of new capabilities to mitigate these risks. The company released the Opus 5.5 model, striving to keep pace with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, following the launch of the GPT-6 Astra model.

Founded in 2021 by a team of researchers, Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May during a funding round that attracted many prominent Silicon Valley and Wall Street figures. Early strategic partners for Anthropic included Amazon and Google, who invested billions in the startup while providing the cloud infrastructure necessary for training and deploying Claude models.

Anthropic remains in intense competition with OpenAI to create the most advanced AI systems. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO in June and is expected to list by early 2027. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in September that the company would not go public this year, citing AI safety issues and calling even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction by the end of the decade 'unacceptable.'

Anthropic's IPO followed Elon Musk's SpaceX IPO, which updated IPO records in June when it offered a $75 billion deal, valuing the company at $1.75 trillion.

Anthropic is maintaining its plans for a billion-dollar Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November, despite a financial instability scenario that has led several other artificial intelligence (AI) companies to postpone or cancel their stock listings.

The move by the developer of the Claude models places Anthropic under intense scrutiny from investors, turning its public offering into a barometer for market appetite for this technology sector.

According to Reuters reports released on Thursday (22), the company is reportedly working to publish its prospectus by the end of October and begin presenting its shares to potential investors in the week of November 9, although sources indicated that this schedule was still subject to changes.

Anthropic's operation has the potential to value it at up to US$ 1.5 trillion (approximately R$ 8.1 trillion). This figure reflects the high investor interest in AI growth but also underscores the high level of expectation placed on a company that still needs to prove how it will maintain its expansion in a more constrained financial context.

While Anthropic proceeds with preparations, several other companies that provide essential infrastructure for the development and operation of AI systems are reassessing their capital market access plans.

Data center operator Switch and AI infrastructure provider Nscale have decided to postpone their IPOs to later dates this year. In the case of Nscale, part of this delay is due to the need to respond to questions raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) team.

Other companies have also adjusted their strategies: SB Energy, which has the support of SoftBank, postponed its listing. Furthermore, AirTrunk REIT, supported by Blackstone, and Firmus, which receives support from Nvidia, opted to withdraw or suspend their offerings, as reported by Reuters.

This general movement occurs during a period marked by rising interest rates and market volatility, conditions that make it difficult to achieve valuations considered attractive for new stock issuances. Pressure has also affected AI infrastructure companies, such as CoreWeave, whose stocks and bonds have experienced a strong downward trend.

Anthropic's offering gains additional relevance, as other corporations may depend on the market reaction to determine the ideal timing for their own stock market entries. One example cited is the recent capital opening of Oura, which, according to sources heard by Reuters, had limited participation from long-term institutional investors, raising doubts about the true depth of demand for shares in new technology companies.

Thus, the success of Anthropic's offering may provide an indication of how much investors are willing to accept high valuations for AI-related companies, even in the face of high interest rates and increased pressure on industry costs. The company's challenge lies in converting these high expectations into an offering capable of attracting capital, without disregarding the uncertainties that have already caused other AI companies to revise their plans.