Abstract:
Anthropic will land in the capital market as soon as next month. This IPO is far more than the public appearance of this AI company. It is also a touchstone to test the U.S. economy. The fate of trillions of dollars of capital depends on this battle. The company that launched the Claude conversational robot is a pillar giant in the AI industry. Its primary market valuation is close to US$1 trillion, and its cumulative financing exceeds US$130 billion. This listing is expected to raise US$100 billion, making it one of the world's most valuable listed companies. But it carries far more meaning than that.
Anthropic and its top rival OpenAI are at the top of a huge ecosystem of cooperation and suppliers: computing infrastructure service providers, chip manufacturers, energy companies, and a number of AI startups have all invested heavily in the past four years, betting that demand for AI products will continue to rise.
The listing of Anthropic will allow the market to have a deep understanding of the core business fundamentals supporting the AI boom for the first time and test whether this boom cycle can be sustained. The market needs to find an answer: Can the strong demand for AI services continue to support the huge investment in chips, data centers and other infrastructure? Or will Anthropic’s performance prove that there is a ceiling for AI growth?
Umesh Padwal, an investor at Seligman Ventures and with nearly 40 years of experience in the technology industry, said: "For the entire market, it is a bellwether."
If Anthropic's IPO performance falls short of expectations, it will dampen investor confidence and trigger a widespread sell-off. The market will begin to question how long the AI boom can last. If the IPO ends successfully, it is expected to boost the market and open up listing channels for more AI companies.
The stock market is already tense, with technology stocks generally weakening this month, led by AI chip manufacturers. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has fallen 26% from its June high and has entered a bear market (a drop of 20% or more from the recent high represents a significant increase in investor panic).
In the past two weeks, Microsoft has canceled its cooperation with data center service provider Nscale. A report from research firm Gartner predicts that 80% of new cloud vendors (neocloud) that provide computing power and data resources to AI companies may go bankrupt. Billionaire Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fund Citadel, bluntly stated that investors in the AI field are “almost certainly in a bubble.”
A series of negative signals have intensified the market’s concerns about huge investments in AI infrastructure. Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft have all disclosed that they plan to invest a total of at least US$740 billion in AI infrastructure such as data centers this year. According to PitchBook, which tracks investment and financing data, primary market investors have injected US$1.1 trillion into Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies since 2022.
As investment in the primary market increases, the secondary market becomes more and more dependent on the AI sector. The top ten constituent stocks of the S&P 500 have a combined market value of over US$1 trillion, eight of which are technology companies; the top ten heavyweight stocks account for more than 40% of the total index, which was less than 20% ten years ago.
Once Anthropic is included in the index, it is likely to squeeze out Berkshire Hathaway or Eli Lilly (the only two non-tech companies with a market value of trillions) and rank among the top ten.
Brad Gastworth, global head of research and market intelligence at supply chain service provider Circular Technology, said: "Everyone is betting on this IPO. If it messes up, the market will be brought down."
This month, Anthropic presented financial data and growth plans to investors at its San Francisco headquarters. Many data look very impressive: the company's revenue in the third quarter was US$16.8 billion, an increase of 45% from the previous quarter. However, investors noticed that its revenue growth rate in the second quarter was as high as 141%, and the growth rate slowed down significantly.
How the market interprets this slowdown will be crucial. If the slowdown is caused by OpenAI and low-cost open source models taking away share, then it means that the overall demand for AI services is still stable; if the slowdown is caused by the shrinking demand for AI in the entire industry, the market reaction will be much more dramatic.
Anthropic declined to comment.
In the past year, Anthropic has been the hottest company in Silicon Valley. Claude Code products have completely changed the way programmers work, driving revenue to skyrocket. Primary market investors have pushed its valuation to $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI.
In order to meet the needs of AI business, Anthropic signed long-term computing power leasing agreements worth hundreds of billions of dollars to purchase computing power from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. It also purchased chips from Nvidia and rented data centers from Nscale and other companies. The manufacturers that provide services for Anthropic continue to spend heavily on upstream suppliers.
But this summer, some Anthropic customers began to believe that spending on tokens (billing units for AI processing and data generation) was too high, and turned to look for lower-cost alternatives. As one of Anthropic's largest customers, Meta originally expected to invest up to $10 billion per year in its technology, but later cut back on spending and switched to other AI models.
The share prices of some AI companies listed this year have already weakened: Silicon Valley AI chip manufacturer Cerebras's share price has fallen by about 40% from its issue price in May; AI infrastructure company Accelevation's current share price has dropped by about one-third from its issue price of $18 in September; Musk's SpaceX went public in June, and its share price has also fallen sharply from its high point, but it is still about 9% higher than the issue price.
Against this background, the IPO market as a whole has cooled down. Holtec, which provides nuclear power supplies to the AI industry, withdrew its listing application last month; SB Energy, a data center company owned by SoftBank, OpenAI's core investor, and Aggreko, which supplies power to data centers, have both postponed their listing plans.
Matthew Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital who tracks IPO dynamics, said: "AI infrastructure is the core thread of this year's IPO market, and it is also the sector hardest hit by the sell-off in recent weeks."
Investment banks have reminded companies that it is now difficult to obtain the valuation expected two months ago. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in this month's earnings call that although the IPO window has not closed, companies that want to get the expected valuation this summer will most likely have to wait.
"The market has weakened significantly in September." He said.
Anthropic's revenue growth has slowed, further deepening market concerns. The market had previously expected its IPO valuation to be as high as US$2 trillion. However, in an environment of stalled growth and sluggish market conditions, people familiar with the matter said that some investors have begun to discuss a valuation range of US$1.5 trillion to US$1.7 trillion.
AI industry executives are trying to calm market sentiment. Chip maker TSMC CEO Wei Zhejia stated this month that there is no ceiling for TSMC’s profit growth.
Last weekend, concerns about AI investment continued to simmer, and the market fell again. The Nasdaq index, dominated by technology stocks, suffered its largest single-day decline since June.
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