Claude chatbot maker set for $1.3tn stock market debut despite ‘catastrophic’ AI warning

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) company behind the Claude chatbot, could be valued at around $1.3 trillion (£1 trillion) when it lists its shares for sale on New York's Nasdaq stock exchange.

The loss-making company says it will offer shares at $70 to $78 each and raise up to $64bn when it floats this month.

It would value Anthropic at between $1.1tn and $1.3tn, which, although large, is below the $2tn some backers predicted in summer, according to the Financial Times.

The huge valuation comes despite the company warning last month that AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity".

It is floating at a volatile time for big tech firms. After last week's US midterm elections, the Nasdaq fell sharply on concerns that a Democrat-led Congress could slow AI development out of data centres.

Wider fears also persist over the billions of dollars being spent on AI and whether it will pay off.

In its most recent results for the six months to the end of June, Anthropic's revenues jumped to $16.2bn from $1.1bn in the same period last year.

However, its pre-tax loss jumped to $80.7bn from $12.9bn.

Fiona Cincotta, a senior market analyst at City Index, said the $64bn Anthropic wants to raise is "fairly bullish" within "the volatility [and] concerns towards AI that we've seen in sort of particularly last week".

She told Reuters: "It's showing that they are still sort of upbeat about the outlook as far as AI is concerned and that obviously they think that the demand is going to be there."

Anthropic, which will list under the symbol ANT on 19 November, will be the first fully AI-focused company to go public, making it a test case for the future of the technology.

At $1.3tn, Anthropic's possible valuation is below SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company, which listed its shares in June and was valued at nearly $1.8tn.

Anthropic is just five years old. Brothers and sisters Dario and Daniela Amodei co-founded it in 2021, along with five others, all of whom worked at OpenAI, the rival AI giant behind ChatGPT.

It announced its intention to list on the stock market in June, and OpenAI followed suit. That listing is now expected to occur early next year.

The listing announcements were followed by a series of incidents in which AI agents, bots designed to operate somewhat autonomously, went rogue.

Current and former staff at both companies have warned that AI technology was being developed without safeguards to protect humanity from possible future harms caused by AI.

Anthropic has admitted that advanced AI systems "could, if not developed, deployed, and operated with appropriate safeguards, oversight, and security measures, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, particularly if such systems were misused, replicated, weaponised, or allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy".

The company has reiterated its promise to develop AI for the benefit of people.

It has warned investors its future success depends largely on its ability to develop the most advanced AI models, and that "any failure to do so could adversely affect our business".