Anthropic discloses finances ahead of planned stock market listing
AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, has published details of its business ahead of a share listing. It reported losses of more than $80.7bn in the first half of the year.
Anthropic, the US artificial intelligence (AI) company behind the Claude chatbot, has disclosed details of its business as it prepares to sell shares to the public. The debut is expected to be the largest in stock market history. It will be the first true AI company to go public, making it a test for the future of the technology.
Financial results
In the first half of the year, Anthropic recorded losses of more than $80.7bn (£60.5bn), against revenue of $16.3bn over the same period. The number of shares to be offered and their price range have not yet been set. The company intends to list on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol ANT.
Its valuation is expected to exceed that of SpaceX, which this summer carried out the biggest stock listing so far, at an initial valuation of about $1.8 trillion.
Investment approach
Anthropic said it will often make investments that "may seem irresponsibly large at first glance". The company argued that capturing the opportunity requires investing more aggressively than a business operating in a more slowly changing technological environment. It said it aims to be bold but sane, and to win trust through a record of successful bets.
Tech companies have poured more than $1tn into costly AI infrastructure, such as data centres and models, over the past year alone.
Rivalry and risks
Anthropic was founded five years ago by chief executive Dario Amodei, his sister Daniela Amodei and five other co-founders. It announced its intention to go public in June. Its main rival, OpenAI, quickly said it also planned to list; according to a person familiar with its plans, that listing is now expected early next year.
After both companies set these plans in motion, a wave of cyber-security and other technological breaches involved their AI agents, which are bots designed to operate somewhat autonomously. Current and former staff at both firms have also publicly warned that AI is being developed without the ability to protect humanity from possible future harms.
In its new documents, Anthropic repeated its pledge to develop AI in a way that benefits people, while warning investors about the dangers of the technology.
