Anthropic is growing rapidly ahead of an initial public offering expected this year, but skepticism is deepening among investors amid the advance of Chinese open-source artificial intelligence models, OpenAI's pursuit and a growing debate over slowing down AI development. The company is now expected to delay its listing, previously anticipated in October, by one month.
Anthropic's annualized revenue surged to $65 billion as of July and is projected to top $120 billion by the end of this year, the Financial Times reported on the 19th. The British newspaper said the pace of growth was enough to make it the fastest-growing company in history. Anthropic, whose strength lies in enterprise AI, has been valued at $965 billion, making it the most valuable privately held AI developer.
The problem is that questions are emerging over whether Anthropic can keep growing. The recent rise of OpenAI, its biggest rival, is a prime example. After releasing GPT-5.6 in July, OpenAI secured enterprise customers with aggressive pricing and overtook Anthropic in weekly customer spending on the AI model platform OpenRouter for the first time in two and a half years. OpenAI is investing aggressively in model development and infrastructure, with its cumulative free cash flow deficit projected to reach $278 billion by 2030. Still, analysts say the spending has paid off, with annualized revenue up about 20% since the July model release.
Anthropic must also fend off low-cost Chinese open-source AI models. Models released by China's Moonshot AI and DeepSeek deliver performance close to Anthropic's closed models, intensifying price competition.
Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei has argued that AI companies should slow development to ensure safety. But critics say that approach does not help in competition with China and amounts to a strategy to cut development costs under the guise of the common good. Market forecasts for Anthropic's valuation after listing also vary widely, ranging from $1.5 trillion to $4 trillion.
Amid these challenges, Anthropic, which is targeting a valuation of up to $2 trillion, has pushed its listing back to November from October, The Wall Street Journal reported. Anthropic is also considering releasing a new AI model to counter attention drawn by OpenAI's latest model, Astra, according to Reuters.
