Anthropic IPO faces investor pushback: valuation sought cut to $1.5 trillion, compute commitments near $900 billion

Beating AI News Flash: As tech stocks tumbled last week, large institutional investors planning to participate in Anthropic's IPO have begun demanding a lower valuation, hoping to set it at $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion. Investors are worried about overheating AI investment, headwinds in data center construction, and the difficulty of realizing profits from massive computing power investments.

Anthropic has not yet finalized its valuation and the number of shares to be issued. The company plans to launch its roadshow as early as next week, aiming to list in the week of November 16. Some investors hope the company will price conservatively to leave room for a first-day share price gain.

On November 2, Anthropic also submitted an updated S-1/A prospectus to the SEC, disclosing total committed computing power and infrastructure contracts of approximately $895.4 billion, covering cloud computing procurement, data centers, and equipment leasing. Of that, about $447.5 billion is expected to occur before the end of 2030, with most of the remainder extending to 2045. In the next 12 months alone, there are about $69.8 billion in contractual payment obligations.

Anthropic's third-quarter revenue reached $16.956 billion, up about 47% quarter-over-quarter, though the second quarter's quarter-over-quarter growth had been as high as 144%. Operating profit swung from $974 million in the second quarter to a loss of $567 million in the third quarter.

Anthropic explained that in the third quarter, about $5 billion of computing power came from more expensive short-term contracts, and it also recorded about $2 billion in non-cash employee donation matching expenses. Price cuts on new models and customer agreement discounts also offset about $600 million in revenue growth.