Anthropic’s IPO is decisive for the technology industry

Between rising interest rates, 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 increasing strain.

Now comes the biggest tech IPO in years and a defining event for the booming but still young artificial intelligence market.

With Anthropic set to debut on the Nasdaq on Thursday, the stakes are high for almost every major tech company. Advanced microdevices, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia And Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company are collectively investing $26 billion at the IPO price, which is currently expected to be between $70 and $78 per share. Some of these companies are existing investors, as are early backers. Amazonwhose stake could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

In addition to all the money at stake, the tech giants also need Anthropic’s spending for many years. The creator Claude and his main rival, OpenAI, are driving an inordinate amount of AI development and burning through historic amounts of money in the process.

Anthropic has outstanding spending commitments of more than $900 billion, according to its latest prospectus. It will need 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 has also made $300 billion in commitments to data center and chip partners. Anthropic intends to spend between $125 billion and $150 billion on AI chips Googlealthough delivery will not begin until 2028.

“The numbers are just staggering,” Joe Fath, a partner at venture capital firm Eclipse and a former portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said in an interview. “It’s hard to understand that.”

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

By going public now, Anthropic can raise much of the money it needs to pay for the technology and infrastructure needed to build and host its pioneering models and expand its service portfolio. The company posted a net loss of $104 billion in the first nine months of 2026. The IPO could raise more than $90 billion in proceeds, on top of Anthropic’s existing $132 billion in liquidity, including short-term investments.

The length of Anthropic’s contracts is also unique. Typically, these contracts last five years or less, while Anthropic’s deal with Amazon extends for twice as long.

“Really, beyond three or four years, you’re throwing darts in the dark,” said Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at expense management software maker Duckbill. “It is almost certain that it will be renegotiated well before this contract comes to fruition.”

Meanwhile, a data center for Anthropic whose rental will begin in 2027 has a duration of 20 years. For both space and computing, Anthropic is splurging now so as not to run out of capacity in the future.

“In the past, we have significantly underestimated our compute needs, which has limited us in capacity and impacted product development and deployment,” Anthropic said in the prospectus.

Anthropic and Amazon provided no comment.

It’s a tough time for Anthropic to hit the Nasdaq, with this offering coming as tech investors are desperate for good news. The Nasdaq is down for early November after falling 5.3% in October, its worst month since March 2025.

Rising interest rates have pushed investors out of heavily leveraged neoclouds, which have become a critical part of infrastructure construction. And in the midterm elections earlier this month, Democrats won landslide victories in both houses of Congress and key gubernatorial races, while dozens of ballot measures were passed that could limit the development of new data centers across the country.

Then came the Nvidia crisis. Shares of the chipmaker at the center of the AI ​​boom fell 13% this week to their lowest level since July 2025, after Huang’s multiple reported affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy, led to his ouster early Thursday. Huang was replaced on an interim basis by CFO Colette Cress, who will face a major test on Tuesday, two days before Anthropic’s debut, as Nvidia prepares to report quarterly results.

Nvidia’s ongoing spinoff and Anthropic IPO are creating a true split-screen moment for the tech heavyweights, who are closely tied to both companies.

Google will be particularly attentive to this.

The company is expected to own about 13% of Anthropic after the IPO and supports the lab’s $19 billion in lease commitments for Terawulfwhich will provide space for Kentucky data centers. If Anthropic becomes insolvent, Google will step in and pay the remaining rent or a termination fee, Terawulf said.

“Everyone knows Anthropic is going to be the future of Google,” said Subhadeep Chatterjee, a former Google cloud partnerships manager who now advises companies.

Google did not provide comment.

A major reason for Anthropic to take out expensive, long-term warranties is that OpenAI is equally aggressive and has limited capacity, especially for graphics processing units. Going long could mean locking in rates as the industry faces the question of whether data center development will slow.

“You’ll have to be in a hurry to get infrastructure, and if you can’t do it, you’ll be out of business,” said Eli Mansoor, CEO of OskaQ Consulting, which advises companies on cloud negotiations. “Previously, prices were always going down, but that is changing, especially in the GPU world.”

Major financial firms are lining up to help Anthropic get what it wants. Bank of America, black stone, Citi Group And Morgan Stanley have offered $63 billion to buy racks full of Broadcom AI chips that Anthropic will lease. Broadcom provided a safety net of maximum liability of $43 billion.

That’s a lot of silicon and a huge gamble for a five-year-old company that has never experienced a technology slowdown.

“It’s not a risk-free prospect, but I would call it a smart investment,” said David Tollen, founder of Sycamore Legal, which specializes in IT contracts. “They’re investing, in a sense, in themselves. They’re investing money in something that, if successful, gives them a piece of the action.”

WATCH: Buying Anthropic is betting that its explosive growth can outpace its expenses, says Jim Cramer