Anthropic Is Racing to Be the First AI Lab to Go Public

The first AI lab to go public is taking shape, and it is Anthropic. The Claude maker has confidentially filed for an IPO at a 965 billion dollar valuation, targeting an October listing on the Nasdaq. Its revenue is growing at a pace that explains the number, and the offering could raise more than 60 billion dollars.

The filing follows a giant raise. Anthropic closed a 65 billion dollar Series H led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia, the round that set the 965 billion valuation and pushed it past rival OpenAI on paper. Submitting a confidential draft to the SEC is the formal step that starts the clock toward a public listing, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley lined up to lead.

The growth is the headline. Anthropic's revenue reached a 47 billion dollar annualized run-rate in May, up from 9 billion in January, roughly five times in five months. That curve is what lets investors justify a near-trillion-dollar tag for a company that did not exist a few years ago. The number is enormous, and the question is whether the pace can hold.

For the market, this is a milestone. No pure AI lab has gone public before, so Anthropic would give ordinary investors their first direct way to own a frontier model maker, rather than buying it through a stake in Microsoft or Nvidia. An offering that raises more than 60 billion dollars would be one of the largest tech listings ever, and it would set the template for OpenAI and others to follow.

The risks ride along with the size. Anthropic is still spending enormous sums on compute and talent, the path to profit is unproven, and a near-trillion valuation leaves little room for disappointment. The same AI-demand worries hitting chip stocks this week would land on a public Anthropic too. Going first means setting the price that everyone else gets measured against.

So the first AI lab IPO is moving from rumor to filing, with Anthropic in the lead. A 965 billion valuation, a 47 billion run-rate, an October target on the Nasdaq. The AI boom is about to get a pure-play stock. Watch for the ticker, the price range, and whether the growth keeps up with the valuation.