Anthropic IPO Faces Anti-AI Backlash at $1-1.5 Trillion Valuation

Anthropic Targets Mid-November Nasdaq Debut Despite Market Turmoil and Public AI Backlash

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is preparing for a public debut on the Nasdaq exchange in mid-November, targeting a valuation between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, CNBC reported on Friday. That valuation range marks a decline from a $2 trillion target floated in recent months, arriving as the company faces both a sharp stock market sell-off and widespread public resistance to artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The planned initial public offering coincides with severe turbulence on Wall Street. On Thursday, the Nasdaq suffered its steepest single-day drop in 19 months, losing $2.5 trillion in market value amid investor fears of an artificial intelligence slowdown, as reported by CNN. Chipmakers and neocloud providers tied directly to the artificial intelligence buildout absorbed the heaviest losses.

Voters Elect Candidates Promising Stricter Artificial Intelligence Regulations

Voters expressed stark opposition to artificial intelligence and large technology companies during Tuesday’s midterm elections, electing candidates who campaigned for stricter regulations on the technology. Democratic challengers won sweeping congressional and gubernatorial victories in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Georgia, while local communities voted down data center-related ballot measures in 40 out of 41 instances.

Exit polling from NBC News showed that more than half of voters considered artificial intelligence data centers a crucial or major factor in their congressional votes. “People don’t want a data center going near them if it’s just going to house AI that’s going to help a big tech company profit,” Maura Austin, a behavioral scientist at the University of Virginia, told CNBC.

A survey published on Monday by the University of Southern California found that 71 percent of respondents do not trust big tech companies to act in society’s best interest regarding data center development. “Once you’ve lost trust, it’s hard to gain it back,” Wändi Bruine de Bruin, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Institute, told CNBC.

Anthropic Enters into Massive Infrastructure Purchase Commitments

To support the compute capacity required for its Claude models, Anthropic disclosed in an updated regulatory prospectus that it has entered into purchase commitments and lease agreements totaling approximately $895.4 billion through 2045, with substantially all dedicated to compute and infrastructure. Fortune reported that the company held $146.6 billion in liquidity as of September 30, combining cash, short-term investments, and available bank credit.

Some hardware suppliers are directly assisting with financing. Broadcom has agreed to absorb losses under a $63 billion equipment-financing arrangement if Anthropic defaults, with maximum potential liability reaching about $43 billion once equipment is deployed, according to Fortune’s review of the filing. Jan Trzcinka, a financial analyst cited by Fortune, noted that while the company's liquidity is strong, achieving an investment-grade debt rating depends on how rating agencies assess future commitments and interconnected supplier relationships against incoming customer revenue.

Analysts Debate Valuation Discounts and Public Scrutiny for Anthropic

Kennedy told CNBC that a public company does not deserve more criticism than a comparable private company, and that Anthropic should not be put in a harsher public spotlight than OpenAI just because it’s public. Conversely, JonesTrading chief market strategist Mike O’Rourke told CNN that Anthropic will likely need to accept a valuation discount to complete the offering amid the current market correction.

Anthropic declined to comment.

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