Anthropic’s IPO filing reveals the expensive economics of AI

Anthropic has filed to sell Class A shares to the public and plans to list on Nasdaq under the symbol ANT, though it has not yet set a price range or share count. The filing gives the clearest public view yet of the maker of Claude: first-half revenue reached $16.3 billion, up from $1.16 billion a year earlier, while more than 11,900 customers were spending at least $100,000 over the prior 12 months by September. Its $80.7 billion net loss is eye-catching, but much of it came from accounting adjustments tied to convertible financing rather than the day-to-day cost of running the business. Still, the company has about $417 billion in commitments for the computing capacity behind its products, with further planned deals that could add $125 billion to $150 billion; its prospectus also warns that advanced AI could cause catastrophic harm. The offering will test whether extraordinary corporate demand can ultimately pay for AI’s unusually industrial scale and risk.