Anthropic Files for IPO at $965B Valuation — Global Capital Bets Everything on AI

Anthropic, creator of Claude, has secretly filed for an IPO at a valuation of $965 billion — and almost immediately announced its next major move. The story of a company not even five years old has become a symbol of the era: global capital is making an ever-larger bet on AI, despite growing public concern.

Record IPO in AI History

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by Dario and Daniela Amodei after their departure from OpenAI, has achieved a valuation that most public companies never reach in decades. $965 billion is comparable to the market capitalization of JPMorgan Chase or Visa and significantly exceeds the combined worth of most European banks. Before going public, the company had already raised investments from Amazon (over $8 billion), Google (several billion), and a number of sovereign funds, including partners from the Persian Gulf countries.

Confidential filing is standard practice for major tech IPOs: it allows terms to be negotiated before public disclosure and permits valuation adjustments if necessary. Anthropic, however, did not delay and announced its next significant move almost immediately. Notably: at its current valuation, Anthropic is worth three times more than OpenAI, despite lower revenue.

This very growth in expectations — detached from current metrics — has become the defining characteristic of the AI market in 2026.

Capital Betting on AI Without Hesitation

Bloomberg describes what is happening as a global bet unprecedented in scale:

• Anthropic at a $965 billion valuation — potentially the most expensive AI IPO in history
• Amazon and Google have jointly invested over $12 billion in the company
• OpenAI, xAI, Mistral, and Cohere are simultaneously raising tens of billions
• Sovereign funds from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Japan are actively entering AI deals
• Corporate AI budgets in 2025–2026 have doubled on average

Such a concentrated flow of capital creates systemic pressure: the pace of new model and product releases is increasingly determined by investor expectations rather than only real user needs.

Voter Anxiety — Still Without Answer

While investors are breaking records, public sentiment is very different. Surveys in the US, EU, and key Asian countries show: the majority of citizens support AI development in principle, but are growing increasingly anxious about its consequences — job loss, concentration of power in the hands of a few corporations, and the absence of real democratic control. This anxiety becomes particularly acute during election periods, when AI becomes a political issue. Neither skepticism nor protests from unions and industry associations have yet translated into political pressure capable of actually slowing the pace. EU regulators with the AI Act, the US Congress, and Asian regulators are moving significantly slower than the market, failing to shape rules where technology already exists.

"We are witnessing a classic gap between the speed of capital and the speed of democracy,"

Bloomberg authors note.

What This Means

Anthropic's entry onto the public market at a valuation comparable to the market capitalization of the world's largest banks sets a new benchmark for the entire industry. For millions of ordinary investors, this opens for the first time a chance to buy a stake in the race that will define the next decade. At the same time, pressure from the public market for monetization and growth will intensify dramatically — quarterly reports show no mercy. The next 12 months will reveal whether the business model of generative AI can bear the weight of such expectations — or whether capital will finally collide with the reality it has long preferred to ignore.