Dario Amodei has spent five years telling investors that Anthropic would eventually be worth more than the company he left. This month, that claim is on the verge of coming true. The artificial intelligence startup is close to completing a new funding round that would value it at more than $900 billion, according to reports on May 23, surpassing OpenAI’s most recent private valuation of $852 billion and making Anthropic the most valuable AI startup in the world.
The reports, from CCTV Finance and other outlets, said the round is being led by a group of investors including Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Altimeter Capital and Greenoaks, with additional commitments from existing backers, according to people familiar with the matter. The proceeds are earmarked for a massive expansion of AI infrastructure — the data centers, chips and energy contracts that have become the industry’s single largest expense — to support surging demand for Claude, the company’s family of models.
The valuation marks the culmination of an extraordinary run. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Amodei, a former OpenAI executive, and his sister Daniela, with a charter built around safety and a public-benefit structure. Four years later, the company was valued at $60 billion; a year after that, investors were debating whether its next round would reach $350 billion. Now the company is being valued near the trillion-dollar mark, on the strength of revenue growth that has made it the fastest-scaling AI business outside OpenAI.
The financial details in the reports are striking. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said Anthropic expects second-quarter revenue of about $10.9 billion, more than double the previous quarter, and that the company is on track for its first profitable quarter. The numbers, if they hold, would put Anthropic in a category almost no AI startup has reached: a company spending billions on infrastructure while still managing to turn a profit on operations.
The funding round would also set up the next act: an initial public offering. Reports have said Anthropic is preparing to list as early as October 2026, and the company has been in discussions with major banks about underwriting, according to people familiar with the matter. A listing at a valuation near $900 billion would be among the largest technology IPOs in history, and it would give public investors their first direct stake in the company that has become OpenAI’s most credible rival.
The race between the two companies has defined the AI industry’s financial era. OpenAI, backed by Microsoft’s more than $100 billion in committed capital, has dominated consumer AI through ChatGPT. Anthropic has built its reputation among enterprises and developers, winning customers who prize its models’ reliability and its safety-focused culture. Investors have rewarded both, but the private-market verdict has shifted: three years ago, OpenAI’s valuation was more than double Anthropic’s; today the two companies are nearly level, with Anthropic now ahead.
The implications extend beyond the two labs. A $900 billion valuation for Anthropic resets expectations for every AI company raising capital, and it will influence how investors price the infrastructure companies that supply the industry — the chipmakers, data-center operators and cloud providers whose fortunes rise and fall with AI spending. The round also deepens the competition for capital itself: with Anthropic and OpenAI both absorbing tens of billions of dollars a year, the pool of investors willing to write the next checks is getting shallower.
There are risks in the optimism. Anthropic’s valuation is supported by revenue growth that, while rapid, has yet to demonstrate durability across economic cycles, and its profitability projections depend on infrastructure costs that have a habit of climbing. The company also faces the same concentration questions as its rivals: a handful of large customers account for a significant share of its revenue, and its dependence on cloud partners for compute leaves it exposed to the pricing power of its suppliers. Analysts said the round’s size reflects conviction, but also a bet that AI demand will keep compounding.
The round also carries a message for regulators and policymakers, who have watched the concentration of AI power with growing unease. A company valued at $900 billion will be treated as a systemic actor, whatever its founders intended, and Anthropic’s public-benefit structure will face the same scrutiny that OpenAI’s capped-profit model endured in court. The company’s safety-first branding, long its differentiator, will be tested by the scale of its obligations.
For Amodei, the valuation is personal. He left OpenAI after disagreeing with its direction, and he has built Anthropic as an explicit alternative — a company that would pursue the same technology with different values. The funding round that puts Anthropic ahead of OpenAI on paper is a vindication of that bet, and a challenge: being the most valuable AI startup carries expectations that only the technology can meet.
