Anthropic targets $2tr valuation in IPO that could eclipse SpaceX

AI company Anthropic is pursuing an initial public offering that targets a $2 trillion valuation — a listing that, if successful, would shatter the record for the largest IPO in history, surpassing SpaceX.

According to the New York Times, Anthropic's underwriters have recently held discussions with potential investors about raising more than $100 billion through the offering.

The company's valuation could reach as high as $2 trillion, sources told the Times. A successful listing on those terms would displace SpaceX as the biggest IPO on record.

SpaceX was valued at $1.77 trillion at the time of its listing and raised $85.7 billion through its IPO.

Anthropic's valuation has been climbing rapidly. Earlier this year, the company was valued at $900 billion in a private fundraising round. A $2 trillion valuation at IPO would more than double that figure.

Surging sales are underpinning the rise in valuation. Last month, Anthropic's annualized revenue — calculated by scaling its monthly sales to a full year — exceeded $65 billion, up more than sevenfold from $9 billion at the end of last year, a gain achieved in just seven months.

Actual sales for the second quarter of this year came in at $11.6 billion, according to sources. Claude Code, the company's coding AI program, drove much of that growth, with sales jumping sharply on its popularity.

Anthropic has told investors it can maintain premium service prices even as competitors cut their own, citing expectations that its AI models will continue to improve in performance.

Whether it can hold that line remains an open question. The spread of relatively cheap "open-weight" AI models has intensified price competition, and that pressure is now reaching the top tier of AI models.

"Price cuts have mainly occurred in upper-mid-tier and general-purpose models, but the pressure is now spreading to top-tier models such as OpenAI Sol and Anthropic Opus," said Lee Eun-taek, a researcher at KB Securities.

OpenAI announced Tuesday that it would temporarily cut prices by 50 percent on its top-tier models, including GPT-5.6 Sol.

Securing sufficient data center capacity, semiconductors and power to meet AI demand is also cited as a challenge the company must address.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by CEO Dario Amodei and other former OpenAI employees.