With its IPO imminent, Anthropic has reported profits for two consecutive quarters.

With its IPO imminent, Anthropic has reported profits for two consecutive quarters.

Anthropic is at a crucial juncture before its IPO, demonstrating the viability of its business model to the market with a strong financial performance.

According to a report by the Financial Times on September 13, sources familiar with the matter revealed that the developer of Claude's large-scale model has informed some shareholders that adjusted operating profit will be positive for the second consecutive quarter , marking a significant milestone for the five-year-old AI unicorn ahead of its IPO. Meanwhile, Anthropic has selected Nasdaq as its listing venue , with an IPO valuation potentially reaching $2 trillion or even higher .

From a financial perspective, Anthropic's performance is quite compelling. According to reports, sources familiar with the matter revealed that the company's gross margin, before deducting revenue sharing with distribution partners like Amazon and model training costs, exceeded 80% ; second-quarter revenue surged 14-fold year-on-year to $11.5 billion, and annualized revenue reached $65 billion by the end of July, a significant jump from $9 billion at the end of last year. Investors predict that Anthropic's annualized revenue will reach $120 billion by the end of the year, and is expected to approach three times that figure by the end of 2027.

However, the road to an IPO is not smooth. Just before the IPO, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly called for the AI industry to slow down its pace of capability enhancement . This statement resonated with the positions of OpenAI and Musk, and forced potential investors to re-examine the potential impact of increasingly stringent AI safety regulations on the company's growth path.

Consecutive profitability marks a significant financial milestone.

According to reports, multiple sources familiar with the matter revealed that Anthropic has disclosed to a small group of shareholders that its adjusted operating profit for the current quarter will be positive, marking the second consecutive quarter the company has achieved this metric . This figure excludes non-cash costs such as share-based compensation.

This achievement is of profound significance for a cutting-edge AI company striving for an IPO. One of the core concerns surrounding large-scale AI companies has long been whether their high investment in computing power and continuous cash consumption can be translated into sustainable commercial returns. Anthropic's disclosure of consecutive profits directly addresses this concern.

SemiAnalysis analyst Joey Brookhart stated:

" If Anthropic can maintain this profit margin and growth rate, it will be extremely difficult for competitors to catch up, because they have already accumulated a large amount of computing power resources. "

With a potential valuation of $2 trillion, the Nasdaq IPO is imminent.

According to reports, sources familiar with the matter revealed that Anthropic has selected Nasdaq as its listing venue, with a potential valuation of $2 trillion or higher for the IPO . The company is currently valued at approximately $965 billion.

Regarding the listing process, Anthropic originally expected to release its prospectus last week, but according to sources familiar with the matter, the company has chosen to first share the relevant documents with a small group of investors and answer their questions before making a public disclosure. This arrangement means that the formal listing timeline still has some flexibility.

In contrast, while competitor OpenAI secretly filed for an IPO in June, its CEO Sam Altman confirmed to Fortune magazine on Saturday that OpenAI will remain private this year, stating that going public in 2026 would be "unwise" given the ongoing controversy surrounding AI security.

Industry collectively calls for a slowdown, with safety concerns casting a shadow over listing prospects.

Just as Anthropic is making a crucial push for its IPO, a rare internal industry dialogue is quietly changing the external public opinion environment.

The report states that, according to sources, employees at several leading AI labs have been in close, private communication in recent weeks discussing how to securely manage the AI development process . These conversations are extremely rare in the highly competitive industry, and are driven by factors including recent security breaches, growing anxiety among researchers about the capabilities of next-generation AI models, and the widespread perception that the Trump administration is unlikely to proactively put the brakes on technological progress. One employee at a leading lab bluntly stated, " We have to rely on ourselves. "

These private communications ultimately laid the groundwork for Amodei and Altman's public statements this week. In an article published on Saturday, Amodei explicitly stated that the AI industry " must slow down the pace of improving the capabilities of AI models ," arguing that the power of new models has raised widespread concerns. This stance was immediately echoed publicly by Altman and Musk.

Analysts believe this statement offers a dual interpretation: while slowing down development could save Anthropic billions of dollars in model training costs, it could also provide competitors with a window to close the gap . Finding a balance between regulatory pressure and commercial competition will be one of the core narrative challenges Anthropic will face after its IPO.

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