Anthropic Initiates Preparations for Potential 2026 IPO
December 3, 2025
Anthropic, the generative AI company behind the Claude assistant, has commenced preliminary work for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, signaling a major milestone for one of the most closely watched competitors to OpenAI. The move underscores the maturation of the AI sector and the immense capital required to fund the compute-intensive race for artificial general intelligence (AGI).
According to a report by the Financial Times, the company has retained the law firm Wilson Sonsini to assist with the early stages of the offering process. While Anthropic has not yet selected its IPO underwriters, CEO Dario Amodei has reportedly held informal discussions with major investment banks. The company emphasized that no final decision has been made, stating, “We haven’t made any decisions about when or even whether to go public, and don’t have any news to share at this time.”
The IPO preparations coincide with a massive private funding round that could value Anthropic between $300 billion and $350 billion. This round includes a $10 billion commitment from Nvidia and a $5 billion pledge from Microsoft, both announced last month. Existing investors Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are also participating. The staggering valuation reflects the company's aggressive infrastructure expansion, including a recent deal with Google Cloud covering more than 1 gigawatt of compute capacity and a separate plan to purchase $30 billion worth of Microsoft Azure credits over time.
Anthropic's potential public listing would represent a watershed moment for the AI industry, providing a new benchmark for valuing frontier AI labs and offering public market investors direct exposure to a pure-play AGI contender. It also highlights the critical intersection of AI development and data center infrastructure, as the company's growth is underpinned by commitments for tens of billions of dollars in cloud computing and a separate, planned $50 billion investment in US data center facilities.
Source: datacenterdynamics
Anthropic Initiates Preparations for Potential 2026 IPO
