The artificial intelligence firm Anthropic is taking steps to become a publicly traded company, marking another milestone in its rapid transformation from an obscure research lab into a major AI industry player with a $965 billion valuation.
On Monday, Anthropic announced it had filed confidential paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeking approval for an initial public stock offering.
“This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review,” Anthropic said in a brief statement. “The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.”
The firm has not yet determined how many shares will be offered or their pricing.
Just last week, Anthropic disclosed it had secured $65 billion in private investment funding, boosting its market worth to $965 billion. This massive figure positions the five-year-old creator of the Claude chatbot among the planet’s most valuable startup companies.
This development puts Anthropic in front of its primary competitor, OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, in terms of both market worth and reported earnings. Anthropic reports it is currently generating $47 billion in annual revenue by licensing its technology to individuals and businesses that use Claude for coding and various professional and personal tasks.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic joins both AI companies, along with Elon Musk’s rocket and AI venture SpaceX, in preparing for public trading. However, all three enterprises continue to spend more than they earn, raising questions about a potential AI market bubble.
