Anthropic IPO is make or break for the technology industry

Between rising interest rates, a nationwide AI backlash, a major political shift in Washington, D.C., and the sudden ouster of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the tech industry is under mounting strain.

Now comes the most important tech IPO in years, and a defining event for the burgeoning but still young artificial intelligence market.

With Anthropic expected to debut on the Nasdaq on Thursday, the stakes are sky-high for almost every major tech company. Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company are collectively investing $26 billion at the IPO price, which is currently expected at $70 to $78 a share. Some of those companies are existing investors, as is early backer Amazon, whose stake could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

In addition to all the cash on the line, tech giants also need Anthropic’s spending for many years to come. The Claude creator and its top rival, OpenAI, are driving an outsized amount of the AI buildout, and are burning historic amounts of money in the process.

Anthropic has outstanding spending commitments of over $900 billion, according to its latest prospectus. It’s on the hook to spend at least $110 billion with Amazon over the course of a decade, and another $400 billion with other companies for cloud capacity, according to filings and partner disclosures. The lab also made $300 billion in commitments with data center and chip partners. Anthropic intends to lay out $125 billion to $150 billion for AI chips from Google, though delivery won’t start until 2028.

“The numbers are just staggering,” Joe Fath, a partner at venture firm Eclipse and former T. Rowe Price portfolio manager, said in an interview. “It’s hard to get your head wrapped around it.”

Cloud partners Amazon, Google and Microsoft account for 31% of contractual obligations, Anthropic said in its prospectus. Last year, Amazon built an Indiana data center just for Anthropic, using custom chips.

By going public now, Anthropic can raise a large portion of the money it needs to pay for the technology and infrastructure required for building and hosting its frontier models and expanding portfolio of services. The company recorded a net loss of $104 billion through the first nine months of 2026. The IPO could yield over $90 billion in proceeds, on top of Anthropic’s $132 billion in existing cash, including short-term investments.

The length of Anthropic’s contracts is also unique. Typically such contracts last five years or less, while Anthropic’s agreement with Amazon extends for twice that…