Anthropic goes to the next level! It is reported that the company plans to raise $50 billion in funding this summer, with a valuation approaching $1 trillion, surpassing OpenAI.

On the road to chasing the pole position in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, it seems that Anthropic has already surpassed OpenAI. It is reported that Anthropic is considering raising billions of dollars this summer to significantly expand its computing power, with an estimated valuation close to $1 trillion. This would surpass OpenAI, which just completed a record-breaking $122 billion financing in March at a valuation of $852 billion. According to sources familiar with the matter, with continuous revenue growth, Anthropic has attracted interest from investors including Dragoneer, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Three sources claim that Anthropic is expected to raise as much as $50 billion in this round of financing. The deal is likely to be completed within two months. However, the sources also added that Anthropic's CFO, Lao, has been in discussions with investors but has not yet reached an agreement on terms, and there is no guarantee that the deal will be finalized. Many sources have stated that investors hope to establish positions in Anthropic before its initial public offering (IPO) scheduled for the end of the year. Although Lao has not formally started negotiations, existing investors have requested to participate in this round of funding. Due to the large size of the financing and the company's plans to go public, Anthropic may prioritize institutional investors with experience in both public and private investments. Rapid Revenue Growth and Soaring Valuation Last month, Anthropic announced that its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) had exceeded $30 billion, a significant increase compared to $9 billion at the end of 2025. A report from Semi Analysis in early May indicated that Anthropic's ARR had risen to approximately $44 billion. This growth rate far exceeds that of OpenAI during the same period. Anthropic's explosive performance growth is mainly attributed to the popularity of its Claude AI model. Last month, Anthropic stated that the demand for Claude had caused "inevitable pressure on infrastructure," affecting the "stability and performance" of the user experience, especially during peak hours. The surge in demand and the scarcity of computing power have prompted Anthropic to actively engage with commercial aerospace giant SpaceX, Alphabet Inc. Class C Cloud, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US), and others to secure more computing resources. The significant increase in demand for Claude has become a "sweet burden" for Anthropic. CEO Amodei mentioned on Wednesday that the company originally planned for a 10x growth, but revenue and usage in the first quarter increased by 80 times on an annualized basis, explaining why the company has struggled to meet demand. He somewhat arrogantly stated that the current growth rate is "insane" and "hard to manage," hoping that future expansion will be "more normal." Anthropic's competitive advantage in the enterprise market lies in the confidence gained from its rapid performance growth. Over 80% of its revenue comes from enterprise customers. Eight of the top 10 Fortune companies are stable customers of Anthropic; the number of customers paying over a million dollars annually has doubled. The annual revenue of Claude Code programming assistant alone is close to $2.5 billion, more than five times the mid-2025 figure of $400 million; enterprises contribute over half of the revenue for Claude Code. This means that Claude Code is no longer just a model function "writing code," but is starting to be taken seriously in terms of budgeting, permissions, auditing, and organizational management in enterprise software. For upstream segments, the most important change in such businesses is that demand will be more sustained and more reliant on stable delivery, rather than sudden surges in model deployment. Data from early 2026 on enterprise spending shows that Anthropic has captured 73% of the market share in companies making their initial AI tool purchases, surpassing OpenAI. This advantage in the enterprise market is directly related to Anthropic's focus on AI safety and alignment research. As one of the leading large model vendors globally, its model outputs' compliance and accuracy significantly surpass similar products, rapidly increasing penetration rates in industries with strict regulations such as finance, law, and healthcare. Backed by high-speed performance growth, Anthropic's valuation curve has also been astonishing. Its Series F valuation was $183 billion in September 2025, rising to $380 billion in February 2026 for Series G, an increase of over 107%. Previous reports indicated that the company was aiming for a $900 billion valuation, but it has now surpassed that figure, heading towards a trillion-dollar valuation. It is worth mentioning that the latest chain-based Pre-IPO trading data shows that Anthropic's implied valuation has surged to $1.2 trillion. If Anthropic successfully completes its IPO at a valuation of $1.2 trillion, it will leap into the ranks of the world's 11th largest public company, creating a new myth in business history. As Anthropic's main competitor, OpenAI also plans to launch an IPO in the second half of 2026. However, Musk's lawsuits against OpenAI, its CEO Altman, and co-founder Brockman are stalling the latter's IPO plans. Altman and Brockman are core drivers of OpenAI's financing and strategic partnerships. If Musk wins the lawsuit, changes in OpenAI's management or corporate structure could force a postponement of its IPO plans, impacting the company's funding and expansion pace. Additionally, news of OpenAI failing to meet its internal targets for user growth and sales has raised concerns about the commercial sustainability of this AI giant. Combined with its lack of competitive strength against Anthropic in the enterprise market, some investors are questioning its high valuation, potentially hindering its path to an IPO. Remaining Concerns At the same time, some analysts have pointed out that based on information disclosed during the preparation of the prospectus, Anthropic's growth logic still faces three significant hidden risks, which could lead some investors to question its high valuation. Firstly, there is still structural risk in customer concentration. Although Anthropic has over 300,000 enterprise customers, its revenue remains heavily concentrated among its top clients. Apart from Amazon.com, Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Class C contributing over 20% of the revenue, its business model is deeply tied to cloud platforms. Anthropic has committed to purchasing up to $30 billion in Azure computing power from Microsoft Corporation, over $100 billion in AWS computing power from Amazon.com, Inc. over the next decade, and a maximum of $40 billion investment and 5 gigawatt TPU computing power from Alphabet Inc. Class C. While these long-term agreements come with significant equity investments and reciprocal business interests, any price hikes or supply fluctuations from core cloud providers could still impact its gross margin levels. On the revenue side, any reduction in purchases by top customers, a shift to developing in-house large models, or support for other competing products could directly impact revenue stability. Secondly, Anthropic's unique governance structure may raise concerns among investors. Anthropic uses a Public Benefit Company (PBC) structure, with the core governance mechanism being the Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), which holds special Class T shares and has the power to elect the majority of the board of directors. Even after going public, the company's strategic decisions will prioritize serving the "long-term interest of humanity" over shareholder returns. While this unique design gives it a policy advantage in the context of stricter AI regulations, it may still be viewed by public market investors as a "mission discount" - where trust institutions have veto power over certain business decisions, potentially leading to profits being sacrificed for ethical considerations, and restricting the voting rights and financial benefits of investors. Balancing the trust's mission with shareholder interests will be a core challenge for Anthropic. Lastly, the high valuation premium could put tremendous pressure on Anthropic to deliver results. Based on the target valuation of $900 billion, and an annualized revenue of approximately $44 billion, its price-to-sales ratio of around 20 times is still much higher than the industry average of 8-12 times in the SaaS industry. To support the current valuation, Anthropic will need to achieve a target revenue of $70 billion and cash flow of $17 billion in 2028, requiring at least a 50% growth rate annually for the next three years, while continually improving its gross margin. Although the Semi Analysis report shows that the gross margin of Anthropic's reasoning infrastructure has risen from about 38% twelve months ago to over 70%, with the unit economics model improving, the costs of large model training and inference remain high. Moreover, the price wars from competitors like OpenAI, Alphabet Inc. Class C, and Gemini have made the realization of performance even more challenging. In conclusion, for Anthropic to truly establish a market position on par with OpenAI, it still needs to overcome multiple hurdles such as ecosystem building, cost control, and expanding into the consumer market. Whether Anthropic's IPO will receive recognition from the capital markets largely depends on whether investors are willing to pay a premium for its differentiated positioning and unique governance structure focused on safety. Even if it successfully goes public, in an industry where the pace of large model technological iteration is less than twelve months, maintaining technological advantages and continuously increasing market share will remain critical areas of focus for investors.