Anthropic Prepares October IPO, Aims to Raise More Than $60 Billion for AI Buildout

Anthropic, one of OpenAI's main rivals in generative AI, is reportedly preparing an IPO as early as October 2026. The company aims to raise more than $60 billion and put a significant share of it toward scaling AI infrastructure in the US.

IPO plans

Bloomberg and The Information reported the possible listing, citing sources familiar with the discussions. According to those reports, the offering is still at an early stage of preparation, so its terms may yet change. But the target already looks very ambitious: the company wants to raise more than $60 billion, which immediately places it among the most high-profile tech listings of recent years.

If plans hold, Anthropic could go public in October 2026. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are reportedly ready to handle the deal. With IPOs at OpenAI and xAI also under discussion, investors could soon get several large bets on AI infrastructure and applied services, each company offering its own approach to growth, monetization and relations with government.

Where the money will go

Anthropic needs the capital not just to expand its team or launch new models. The main goal is a sharp increase in computing capacity. According to Bloomberg, the company wants to put about $50 billion toward building data centers for AI infrastructure in the US.

For the market, this is an important signal: the AI race increasingly hinges not on ideas but on access to electricity, chips and data center sites. If the plan is confirmed, the money could go to several areas:

• building new data centers for training and inference
• buying server hardware and accelerators
• long-term energy and cooling contracts
• expanding cloud and enterprise infrastructure in the US
• reducing dependence on outside partners for critical capacity

Another important backdrop is the recent private round. In February 2026, Anthropic raised about $30 billion in private capital, with the deal valuing it at $380 billion. MGX of Abu Dhabi was named as the main investor. In other words, this is not a company desperate for cash to survive, but a player trying to lock in a huge capital reserve ahead of the next phase of the infrastructure race.

What could get in the way

Despite investor interest, the IPO carries political risk. According to the article, a serious obstacle remains the conflict over Anthropic's relationship with the Pentagon. The company landed on a US "blacklist" after its leadership protested the use of AI for mass surveillance of citizens and for automatically selecting targets and then using weapons without a human making the decision. Even for the tech market, this is not merely a reputational dispute but a question of access to government contracts.

On March 26, 2026, a court ruled that Anthropic's inclusion on the list was unlawful, but that does not guarantee the pressure from authorities will disappear. If the conflict continues, investors will weigh not only the company's growth rate but also the risk of losing or having limited government orders. For a company building expensive infrastructure and competing in a capital-intensive industry, this factor could noticeably affect market appetite and the final valuation at the offering.

What this means

The Anthropic story shows how quickly the AI market is moving from experimentation to mega-scale financial deals. If the IPO goes ahead at the stated level, it will signal that investors are ready to put tens of billions not only into models and chatbots but into the foundation: data centers, energy and infrastructure, without which the next wave of AI products simply won't take off.