Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is betting that AI will transform the global economy more profoundly than the Industrial Revolution, electricity or the internet. Getting there, however, is proving extraordinarily expensive.
The Claude developer recorded a net loss of nearly $42 billion in 2025 and plans to spend about $518 billion on cloud services, computing power and infrastructure in the coming years, according to an IPO prospectus reviewed by Reuters.
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Anthropic plans $518 billion AI infrastructure push as it prepares for blockbuster Wall Street IPO
(Photo: JRdes/Shutterstock.com)
The filing offers a rare look inside the finances of one of the world’s largest privately held AI companies, founded just five years ago.
Anthropic’s revenue surged twelvefold in 2025 to nearly $4.6 billion, but its losses also widened sharply. Its operating loss reached $8.06 billion, up from $2.98 billion in 2024.
The nearly $42 billion net loss is even more striking, though most of it did not come from day-to-day operations. About $34 billion consisted of an accounting expense reflecting the rising estimated value of financing instruments that could eventually convert into Anthropic shares.
A potential $2 trillion valuation
The planned offering could value Anthropic at more than $2 trillion, more than double its $965 billion valuation in May.
If completed, it would become one of the biggest tests yet of how Wall Street values the leading companies in the artificial intelligence boom, including Anthropic’s chief rival, OpenAI.
Anthropic spent $7.33 billion on computing power and infrastructure last year, roughly three times its 2024 spending and more than half of its total $12.65 billion in operating expenses.
The prospectus also highlights the risks behind the company’s rapid growth. Nearly a quarter of Anthropic’s revenue last year came from just two customers.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
(Photo: Denis Balibouse/Reuters)
The company warned that many of its largest customers are not bound by long-term contracts, meaning they can reduce or halt spending. At the end of December, Anthropic held $20.28 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.
Reuters has previously reported that the IPO is likely to be delayed until after the U.S. midterm elections in November.
The listing would give public-market investors their first direct opportunity to participate in Anthropic’s growth after the AI race was financed largely by venture-capital firms, sovereign wealth funds and major technology companies.
AI safety warnings as competition accelerates
Anthropic is simultaneously grappling with questions about the risks posed by the technology it is developing.
Internal research by the company has found that as AI models become more autonomous, they may behave in unexpected and potentially harmful ways. In controlled experiments, researchers observed behaviors including code sabotage, assistance with fraud and manipulation of information.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has previously called on the global AI industry to slow the rollout of new capabilities in order to address such risks.
At the same time, Anthropic last week released its new Opus 5.5 model as competition with OpenAI continues to intensify.
OpenAI remains Anthropic’s principal rival, with the two companies competing for corporate customers, talent and influence in Washington.
OpenAI confidentially filed paperwork for a potential public offering in June and, according to reports, could become a publicly traded company in early 2027.
From OpenAI breakaway to AI heavyweight
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by researchers who left OpenAI following disagreements over corporate governance and AI safety.
It launched its first large language model in March 2023, entering direct competition with OpenAI. Today, Anthropic also competes with xAI, Google and Meta.
Amazon and Google were among Anthropic’s earliest and most important strategic partners. Both have invested billions of dollars in the company while also supplying the cloud infrastructure required to train and operate Claude models.
The offering would follow SpaceX’s blockbuster public debut, which valued Elon Musk’s company at $1.77 trillion. SpaceX shares rose 19% on their first day of trading in June before retreating from their peak.
AI and semiconductor stocks have also suffered recent declines, making Anthropic’s prospective IPO a major test of investor appetite for the technology sector’s soaring valuations.