Anthropic has taken the first formal step toward the public markets, filing to sell shares for the first time and setting the stage for a listing that could become the largest initial public offering in history. The company behind the Claude chatbot plans to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. The filing, submitted on October 26, converts months of private speculation into a concrete timetable: a public offering could begin as early as November, with trading potentially arriving before Thanksgiving. The question now is whether investors will accept a valuation built on extraordinary growth, enormous spending, and promises of future demand.
The proposed scale is striking. Prospective investors have discussed valuing Anthropic at between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion, roughly double the $965 billion valuation attached to its May funding round. The amount it may seek to raise has reportedly expanded from more than $20 billion to as much as $100 billion, a range that suggests the final deal remains highly negotiable. Major banks are expected to lead the offering, while the company could begin formally marketing shares during the week of November 9. If market conditions hold, the listing could arrive in mid-November, though year-end remains a fallback if volatility disrupts the schedule.
The prospectus also exposes the financial tension at the center of the story. Anthropic reportedly generated $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, up sharply from $1.1 billion a year earlier. Yet it recorded a net loss of about $80 billion over the same period, driven largely by roughly $72 billion in non-cash charges connected to convertible notes and other financing arrangements. The company later told investors that third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, up from $11.5 billion in the second quarter, and said it had become profitable on an adjusted basis. Those figures may reassure some buyers, but they also highlight how dependent the business remains on capital-intensive infrastructure and complex financial instruments.
What may matter most is the scale of Anthropic’s future obligations. A draft of the filing reportedly showed $518 billion in signed compute commitments, an extraordinary figure that reflects the company’s need to secure the computing power required to train and serve its models. That creates a high-stakes equation: revenue is climbing at a pace few companies have matched, but the costs and commitments required to sustain that growth are equally vast. Investors will have to decide whether Anthropic is building a durable platform for artificial intelligence or borrowing heavily against a future that has not yet fully arrived. The IPO will not merely price a company; it will test how much the market is willing to pay for that uncertainty.
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