Anthropic’s IPO Could Be a Key Test for the AI Boom, as Its $2 Trillion Valuation Faces Profitability Scrutiny

According to analysis by Jim Osman, a Forbes columnist, Anthropic’s potential initial public offering (IPO) could serve as a key milestone for testing the investment logic underpinning the AI boom. The company’s annualized revenue run rate has climbed from $14 billion in February to over $47 billion in May, while its latest private valuation has surged from $380 billion in February to $965 billion. Markets are even debating whether its IPO valuation could top $2 trillion, though the company has yet to disclose an offering price or final listing timeline. Osman pointed out that Anthropic’s growth is highly impressive, but this also means much of its future success may already be factored into its valuation. The firm filed a confidential IPO application on June 1, and while preparing for its public listing, it must continue pouring massive capital into maintaining its competitiveness in cutting-edge AI models. In May, Anthropic raised $65 billion in funding, with a portion earmarked for expanding computing power. The company has secured an additional 5GW computing power deal with Amazon, plus another 5GW next-generation TPU computing partnership with Google and Broadcom, and also has access to SpaceX’s GPU capacity. The report added that Anthropic has committed to investing more than $100 billion in Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the next decade. Osman believes investors need to focus not only on whether AI technology continues to advance, but also on how future profits will ultimately be split among model developers, chipmakers, cloud service providers, data centers, and software firms. For Anthropic, the critical factors are how much of its revenue can eventually be converted into cash, how much capital must be reinvested to sustain technological leadership, and whether it can preserve pricing power and long-term returns amid intensifying competition.