Anthropic was founded five years ago. Its Claude bot has soared in popularity this year thanks to its coding capabilities and has been widely adopted by entrepreneurs and technology businesses.
The Silicon Valley lab, which has a focus on AI safety, has targeted business customers with so-called AI “agents”, a kind of digital co-worker.
US investors are braced for a trio of technology floats this year that are collectively expected to add as much as $4tn of value to the stock market.
As well as OpenAI, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which includes its xAI lab, is preparing for a deal as soon as this month that could value the rocket giant at $1.75tn. That would make it the biggest public listing in US history.
‘Race to reach public markets’
The three deals are expected to test the appetite of investors for AI businesses with vast historic losses and plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars.
Mr Ives said: “We believe this represents an opening of the floodgates for the IPO market, which has been relatively dormant for a few years, with these three major conglomerates set to go public later this year – but this has turned into a race to reach public markets over the coming months.”
The huge deals could prompt a reordering of US markets and capital flows as investors rebalance their holdings into the three new tech giants.
A public listing for Anthropic would also reveal for the first time the vast wealth the AI lab has created in just five years.
Anthropic’s seven co-founders – including Mr Amodei, the chief executive, and his sister Daniela Amodei – are all believed to hold stakes worth more than $8bn.
The float would also generate a substantial windfall for dozens of other early staff.
“The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors,” Anthropic said.
Anthropic recently said its revenue run-rate – a preferred metric used in Silicon Valley to extrapolate annual sales at fast-growing businesses – had hit $47bn in May, up from $14bn in February.