Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic on Monday filed documents for what could be the largest initial public offering in history, even as its top executive warns that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity. The filing prepares the San Francisco company for its Wall Street debut next month, potentially eclipsing SpaceX’s initial public offering in June that raised a record $86 billion. An Anthropic IPO would also put the company ahead of OpenAI in going public in what are expected to be a pair of successful stock debuts for rival AI labs. The presentation comes weeks after CEO Dario Amodei argued in an essay in favor of slowing the development of the most advanced AI models. Earnest Wong, portfolio manager and head of research at Toronto-based Baskin Wealth Management, says it’s surprising how little of this warning was reflected in Anthropic’s new IPO. prospectus. “Most of the risks are just normal, standard legal disclosures that are included in most companies,” Wong told CBC News on Monday. SEE | Anthropic Files Papers to Sell Stock to Public for First Time:Anthropic Files Papers to Sell Stock to Public for First TimeAnthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind Claude, will make its Wall Street debut next month. Reports say it could raise up to US$100 billion in its initial public offering, surpassing the current record set by SpaceX earlier this year. An IPO could provide Anthropic with enormous resources to accelerate its expansion. The amount the company ultimately raises remains uncertain, as does its final valuation and offering price, but even with lower estimates, it would make the five-year-old startup one of the most valuable companies in the world and potentially increase the wealth of Amodei and his sister and co-founder, Daniela, by billions of dollars. The 335-page document showed that Anthropic’s revenue is growing rapidly, but like many other technology companies going public, it has yet to turn a profit. The company behind chatbot Claude reported a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026. That compares with a loss of $13 billion in the same period a year earlier. A view of 500 Howard Street in San Francisco, which is the address of Anthropic’s headquarters. (Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press) Despite the losses, Anthropic, valued earlier this year at $965 billion by private investors, is expected to rise in value to $1.5 trillion or possibly $2 trillion, although its final valuation has not been set. At $1.5 trillion, Anthropic would rank among the most valuable public companies in the world, along with Tesla. “You can argue whether $1.5 trillion or $2 trillion… is the right valuation, but there is no doubt that this is a big company that is a force to contend with,” Wong said. As for money raised, the offering could reportedly generate up to $100 billion, surpassing the current record set by another of Musk’s companies, SpaceX, earlier this year. In a regulatory filing, Anthropic said it will list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ANT.” in addition to investing in infrastructure to grow your business and take on your rivals. Formed in 2021 by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic is locked in a fight for dominance with that company; The two leaders, Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are widely seen as bitter rivals. But they have many other competitors, including Google, new startups in the US and China, and Musk’s SpaceX, which has an artificial intelligence business. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX’s AI division have been losing more money than they make due to the huge resource costs of building AI, fueling concerns of a bubble. LISTEN | Why are AI leaders calling for a slowdown? Front Burner 33:35 Why are AI leaders calling for a slowdown? The IPO would help cover any cash shortfalls, as well as shower extraordinary wealth on Anthropic’s seven founders, including Amodei and his sister. Together, they own nearly 500 million shares, although it’s unclear from the offering document how much that will mean for the company after the IPO. Darío, 43, and Daniela, 39, who is president of Anthropic, are worth $15.5 billion each, according to Forbes, which ranks them as the 176th and 177th richest people in the world. Anthropic, ranging from failing to retain key personnel, navigating regulatory hurdles, and securing enough computing power to run its AI systems. But the highlight was that their AI models could “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” Calls for Slowdown of AI The IPO comes as concerns about AI grow within and outside the industry and reports continue to emerge about increasingly powerful systems that solve problems beyond human capacity, but could also go rogue and carry out other, more harmful tasks. In September, Amodei said the AI industry should slow its rapid development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without such a slowdown, Amodei warned that AI could be able to unleash a swarm of agents that could take over the entire Internet within six to 12 months. SEE | Could AI really kill humanity? About That explains the potential risks: We’ve been warned about AI, but could it really kill humanity? | About thatAnthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned over fears that artificial intelligence could cause human extinction in the next decade, and a series of warnings followed. Andrew Chang explains the spectrum of potential dangers posed by the “intelligence explosion” that worries AI industry employees and experts. (Photo credits: The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images) In a post on its website, it offered a plan to increase controls over the industry, noting that Anthropic is already carrying out some of this on its own. As for other steps, however, he said they would require coordination across the industry and with governments around the world, including authoritarian ones. “I believe that if the slowdown allowed us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance the lineup, we could greatly reduce the risk of something going seriously wrong,” Amodei wrote. instead of growing at all costs and with few barriers. Part of this sentiment stems from the company’s dispute with the U.S. government, which erupted in February when President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of endangering national security and designated the company as a supply chain risk. Anthropic sued the Pentagon over the designation in March for what it called an “unlawful campaign of retaliation” for its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology. The legal challenge intensified an unusually public dispute over how AI can be used in warfare and mass surveillance. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, made its own agreement to work with the Pentagon hours after the government punished Anthropic for its stance. Anthropic also filed a separate, narrower case involving a different rule the Pentagon is using to try to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk. A California judge ruled in favor of Anthropic in the first case and a Washington, D.C., judge sided with the government in the second. Both sides are appealing the decisions.
