Exclusive-Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken June 11, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Anthropic is making a massive bet that AI ⁠will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet, according to its IPO prospectus seen by Reuters.

But the cost to get there will be staggering. ⁠Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming year, according to the prospectus.

The ‌prospectus details how the company has grown sharply in the last year — while also posting wider losses. Revenue grew 12-fold in 2025 to nearly $4.6 billion, even as the company lost more than $8 billion on an operating basis, excluding writedowns of various liabilities mostly tied to previous fundraising, according to the documents, reported here for the first time.

The public sale, which could value it at more than $2 trillion, would capitalize on the rapid rise of the AI startup lab that only came into existence ​five years ago, and establish it as a benchmark for how Wall Street values AI's leading companies, including rival ⁠OpenAI.

The plans come as Anthropic confronts evidence from its own research that increasingly ⁠autonomous AI models can behave in unexpected and potentially harmful ways, including sabotaging code, assisting fraud and manipulating information in controlled tests.

These reports have broken into the wider public sphere, igniting fears ⁠over ‌how companies can keep the increasingly powerful systems under control as they race to deploy them commercially.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for the global AI community to slow the pace of releasing new capabilities to address those concerns. Still, Anthropic rolled out its new Opus 5.5 model last week to counter OpenAI’s momentum since its launch of GPT-6 Astra, ahead of its own ⁠expected IPO.

The AI lab spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure last year, a threefold surge from 2024, accounting ​for more than half of its $12.65 billion in total operating expenses.

Anthropic's ‌public market debut is likely to be pushed to after the November US midterm elections, Reuters previously reported, citing sources. The sale would bring public investors into an ⁠AI race that has been until ​now underwritten by venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds and Big Tech companies.

Anthropic declined to comment.

A $2 TRILLION VALUATION EXPECTED

Anthropic's expected valuation target is more than double its own estimated valuation of $965 billion in May.

The near-$42 billion net loss included a roughly $34 billion accounting charge that reflected an increase in the estimated value of financing that could eventually turn into Anthropic shares, rather than money the company spent running its business.

Anthropic said nearly a quarter of its revenue ⁠came from two customers last year, and as part of its risk factors, warned that many of ​its largest clients were not locked into long-term contracts and could cut or stop spending.

Anthropic had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaling $20.28 billion as of December 31, the prospectus shows.

Anthropic's debut would follow SpaceX's recent blockbuster IPO that valued Elon Musk's company at $1.77 trillion.

That company's shares surged 19% in their June 12 debut to $160, but currently trade at around $147 -- above where the IPO sold at $135 apiece.

That performance could give investors ⁠pause as they assess the still-lofty valuations for high-growth companies. AI and chip stocks have sold off recently, and Anthropic's sale will further test whether enthusiasm for the AI trade can withstand greater scrutiny, given its ambitious growth projections.

Still, the listing stands to cap one of the strongest years for US IPOs since 2021, despite elevated interest rates, economic uncertainty and valuation concerns.

THE TRILLION-DOLLAR AI RACE

Anthropic's biggest challenger remains OpenAI, as the two firms fiercely compete for business customers, talent and influence in Washington. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO in June. The ChatGPT maker is expected to list by early 2027, ​according to media reports. Anthropic was founded by researchers who left its rival after disagreements over governance and AI safety.

It also competes with SpaceX's ⁠xAI, Alphabet's Google and Meta to build out AI infrastructure.

Analysts expect the first company to go public to establish valuation benchmarks for the AI industry and attract investors who have waited years for a pure-play ​way to bet on the technology.

Amazon and Google were two of Anthropic's early key strategic partners. Both companies have invested ‌billions of dollars into the startup while simultaneously supplying cloud infrastructure needed to train and deploy Claude ​models.

Anthropic and CEO Amodei have clashed with the White House over the use of its tools, which led to the Pentagon temporarily blacklisting Anthropic, a move blocked by a US judge in August.

(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Colin Barr, Kenneth Li and David Gaffen)

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资料图片：这张摄于2026年6月11日的插图显示了Anthropic的标志。路透社/Dado Ruvic/插图/资料图片

9 月 28 日（路透社）——据路透社看到的 Anthropic 公司 IPO 招股说明书显示，该公司押注人工智能将比工业化、电力和互联网更深刻地改变全球经济。

但实现这一目标的代价将是惊人的。根据招股说明书，Anthropic公司预计2025年净亏损420亿美元，并计划在未来一年内支出5180亿美元用于云计算、计算和基础设施建设。

招股说明书详细说明了该公司过去一年来的快速增长情况，但同时也披露了更大的亏损。根据这份首次披露的文件，该公司2025年的收入增长了12倍，达到近46亿美元，但运营亏损却超过80亿美元（不包括主要与之前融资相关的各项负债的减值）。

此次公开出售的估值可能超过 2 万亿美元，将充分利用这家五年前才成立的人工智能创业实验室的迅速崛起，并将其确立为华尔街评估人工智能领先公司（包括竞争对手 OpenAI）价值的基准。

安人智公司制定这些计划之际，正面临着来自其自身研究的证据，这些证据表明，日益自主的人工智能模型可能会以意想不到且可能有害的方式行事，包括破坏代码、协助欺诈以及在受控测试中操纵信息。

这些报道已经进入更广泛的公共领域，引发了人们对企业如何在竞相商业部署这些日益强大的系统时将其控制在合理范围之内的担忧。

Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei 呼吁全球人工智能界放慢发布新功能的步伐，以应对这些担忧。尽管如此，Anthropic 上周还是推出了新的 Opus 5.5 模型，以对抗 OpenAI 自发布 GPT-6 Astra 以来取得的强劲势头，而 Anthropic 也正准备进行 IPO。

人工智能实验室去年在计算和基础设施方面花费了 73.3 亿美元，比 2024 年增长了三倍，占其 126.5 亿美元总运营支出的一半以上。

路透社此前援引消息人士报道称，Anthropic的公开市场上市可能会推迟到11月美国中期选举之后。此次上市将使公众投资者加入人工智能领域的竞争，而此前这场竞争一直由风险投资公司、主权财富基金和大型科技公司主导。

人用制药公司拒绝置评。

预计估值达2万亿美元

Anthropic 的预期估值目标比其 5 月份估计的 9650 亿美元估值高出一倍多。

近 420 亿美元的净亏损包括约 340 亿美元的会计费用，这反映了融资的估计价值增加，这些融资最终可能会变成 Anthropic 的股票，而不是公司用于运营业务的资金。

Anthropic 表示，去年其近四分之一的收入来自两家客户，作为风险因素的一部分，该公司警告称，其许多最大的客户没有签订长期合同，可能会削减或停止支出。

招股说明书显示，截至 12 月 31 日，Anthropic 公司拥有现金、现金等价物和短期投资总额为 202.8 亿美元。

Anthropic 的上市将紧随 SpaceX 近期轰动一时的 IPO 之后，SpaceX 的 IPO 使埃隆·马斯克的公司估值达到 1.77 万亿美元。

该公司股票在 6 月 12 日上市首日飙升 19% 至 160 美元，但目前交易价格在 147 美元左右——高于 IPO 时每股 135 美元的发行价。

这一业绩可能会让投资者在评估高增长公司仍然过高的估值时有所顾虑。人工智能和芯片类股票近期遭到抛售，鉴于Anthropic雄心勃勃的增长预期，其出售将进一步检验市场对人工智能投资的热情是否经得起更严格的审视。

尽管利率高企、经济形势不明朗且估值令人担忧，但此次上市仍有望为自 2021 年以来美国 IPO 最强劲的年份之一画上句号。

万亿美元人工智能竞赛

Anthropic最大的挑战者仍然是OpenAI，两家公司在商业客户、人才和华盛顿的影响力方面展开激烈竞争。OpenAI已于6月秘密提交了IPO申请。据媒体报道，这家ChatGPT的开发商预计将于2027年初上市。Anthropic由几位研究人员创立，他们因在公司治理和人工智能安全方面存在分歧而离开了OpenAI。

它还与 SpaceX 的 xAI、Alphabet 的 Google 和 Meta 等公司竞争，以构建人工智能基础设施。

分析师预计，第一家上市的公司将为人工智能行业建立估值基准，并吸引那些多年来一直等待纯粹投资该技术的投资者。

亚马逊和谷歌是Anthropic早期最重要的两家战略合作伙伴。这两家公司都向这家初创公司投资了数十亿美元，同时还提供了训练和部署Claude模型所需的云基础设施。

Anthropic 及其首席执行官 Amodei 曾因使用其工具与白宫发生冲突，导致五角大楼暂时将 Anthropic 列入黑名单，但这一举动在 8 月份被美国法官阻止。

（纽约 Echo Wang 和班加罗尔 Manya Saini 报道；Sayantani Ghosh 撰文；Sriraj Kalluvila、Colin Barr、Kenneth Li 和 David Gaffen 编辑）

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