Anthropic's $1.5T IPO Lands in a Cooling AI Market

Anthropic is gearing up for what could be one of the largest public listings in history, with a valuation pegged at $1.5 trillion. The timing is rough. On November 5, the Nasdaq dropped 5.5% and Nvidia shed more than 9% as a broad tech selloff swept through the market, fueled by worries over pricey AI infrastructure and tighter regulation.

The growth story is real. Anthropic pulled in $33.2 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2026, roughly 13 times what it brought in a year earlier. But its valuation expectations have already slid from a hoped-for $2 trillion, settling at $1.5 trillion. According to reports cited by BeInCrypto, some prospective investors are now floating $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion, and a few are eyeing $1.1 trillion.

BloFin Research flags two big concerns for anyone considering the buy. Anthropic has locked in nearly $895 billion in future computing and infrastructure agreements, and at least $269 billion of that is earmarked for computing services from major cloud providers. At $1.5 trillion, buyers would pay about 22 times the company's latest quarterly revenue annualized — a steep ask for a business still working to sustain operating profits.

The ripples reach well past Anthropic. Amazon, Google and Microsoft supply critical computing muscle, while Nvidia rides the broader AI demand wave. That web of dependencies explains why wobbling confidence in AI infrastructure spending hits the whole sector, not just one IPO.

Anthropic projects annual revenue of $190 billion to $200 billion by 2028. If it delivers, today's valuation starts to look a lot more palatable. Until then, investors are paying upfront for growth that hasn't shown up yet.

Three questions hang over the listing: can revenue growth justify the price, can profits keep up with computing costs, and will the IPO price reflect Wall Street's growing caution? The answer will say plenty about how much faith the market still has in the AI boom.