Anthropic’s valuation can’t secure its moat

Anthropic, the Chennai AI company behind Claude, plans an IPO that could value it at $1.4 trillion, one of the largest ever. It will sell 825 million shares at $70‑78 each, aiming to raise up to $64.4 billion, with the valuation including employee‑option shares and implying a market capitalisation near $1 trillion; it was valued at $965 billion in a May private round.

The SEC‑filed prospectus on 10 November shows roughly $900 billion of computing‑infrastructure spending commitments through 2045, half due by 2030 and $70.7 billion in the twelve months to 30 September, plus a possible $150‑175 billion in contingent payments. Revenue grew from $2.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2025 to $33.2 billion in the same slice of 2026, making the proposed fully‑diluted valuation 17 times annualised sales.

Anthropic says over 80 % of Q3 revenue came from models released in the last six months, but it has not proved profitability after meeting its infrastructure commitments and lacks a durable competitive moat, a situation it shares with rivals such as OpenAI.