Anthropic is racing toward what could become the largest initial public offering in history, with its bankers telling potential investors the Claude maker may raise more than $100 billion at a valuation of around $2 trillion.

The discussions, reported by The New York Times on Friday, come as the company prepares to file publicly for its listing as soon as the end of August. An October debut is widely expected, positioning Anthropic to list ahead of rival OpenAI and potentially surpass SpaceX’s record $86.2 billion IPO.

The figures mark a dramatic escalation from earlier expectations. Investors had previously discussed a $1 trillion-plus listing. Now, with Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate climbing past $65 billion by the end of July, the upside case has expanded rapidly.

That $65 billion figure—up from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025 and $47 billion in May—represents more than a sevenfold increase in under eight months. Investors briefed by the company expect the run rate to reach $100 billion to $120 billion by year-end. Preliminary second-quarter revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, and the company has already reported positive adjusted operating income in a recent quarter.

Citigroup is set to join Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase in the top ranks of underwriters, according to Bloomberg. The bank previously participated in a $2.5 billion revolving credit facility for Anthropic that is now being expanded beyond $10 billion ahead of the listing. Deliberations on the full syndicate continue.

Anthropic confidentially filed its S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in early June after closing a $65 billion Series H round that valued the company at $965 billion. Secondary-market trading has since pushed implied valuations higher, with some private-market platforms showing figures above $1.2 trillion.

The company’s growth has been driven heavily by enterprise demand for Claude models, particularly coding and agentic tools. Claude Code has been cited as a major revenue contributor. Anthropic has also secured large strategic commitments from Amazon, Google and AMD for cloud capacity and chips, while exploring its own semiconductor efforts—recently hiring a former Google TPU executive to lead compute initiatives.

Public markets will test whether the AI boom’s private-market valuations can hold under greater scrutiny. Analysts note that justifying a $2 trillion valuation would require continued hyper-growth and eventual margins far above traditional software levels. One valuation expert calculated that Anthropic would need roughly $1.2 trillion in annual revenue within a decade under generous assumptions to support that price.

Anthropic is considering super-voting shares that would give CEO Dario Amodei and co-founders greater long-term control. The company has not publicly confirmed valuation targets or exact timing, stating only that any offering depends on market conditions.

The IPO would arrive amid rising political and public pushback against data-center construction and AI energy use. Some reports suggest Anthropic’s filing may list AI-related backlash as a risk factor. Still, investor appetite remains intense: the firm has raised nearly $100 billion from venture funds, sovereign wealth funds and institutions in 2026 alone.

If the deal prices near the high end of current discussions, Anthropic would become one of the most valuable public companies in the world on day one, ranking alongside or above several of the largest technology giants. The listing would also set a benchmark for OpenAI’s eventual public offering, now expected no earlier than 2027.

For the broader AI industry, the Anthropic IPO represents a critical stress test. Success would reinforce the narrative that frontier model companies can convert rapid capability gains into durable, high-margin businesses. Any shortfall could cool the torrent of capital flowing into AI infrastructure, chips and startups.

As of Saturday, the company continues private briefings and finalizes banking arrangements. Market participants are watching for the public S-1 filing in the coming days, which will provide the first detailed look at Anthropic’s full financials, customer concentration, compute costs and risk disclosures.

The next few weeks will determine whether 2026 delivers the largest IPO on record—and whether public investors are willing to underwrite the AI industry’s most aggressive growth story yet.