Forget SpaceX, a giant tech firm is eyeing record-shattering $3trillion stock market launch as investors line up for an 'extraordinary bet'

AI giant Anthropic could be heading for one of the biggest stock market debuts in history, with at least one major investor reportedly teasing a mind-boggling $3 trillion valuation for the firm's upcoming initial public offering.

The eye-watering figure would put the maker of the top AI model Claude in the same league as some of the world's most valuable companies, and potentially eclipse the record set by SpaceX just two months ago.

According to the Financial Times, several Anthropic investors expect the company to target a valuation of at least $2 trillion when it launches its anticipated initial public offering in October. 

One investor reportedly suggested that a $3 trillion figure could be 'conservative' given the company's rapid growth.

Anthropic and its advisors have not yet settled on a valuation, and early meetings with potential investors have reportedly taken place without discussing a specific figure.

That distinction matters because at $2 trillion, investors would be placing an extraordinary bet on the future of AI.

This would immediately catapult Anthropic - founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei - into the rankings of the world's most valuable public companies.

A $2 trillion valuation would put the company roughly alongside giants such as Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and SpaceX - while a $3 trillion valuation would put it right between Microsoft and Amazon.

Either way, Anthropic's upcoming IPO has a very good chance of topping SpaceX's record-breaking market debut. Elon Musk's company achieved a valuation of more than $1.7 trillion in its June debut, raising almost $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history.

The big question is whether the company's finances can support trillion-dollar valuations. For example, Amazon is currently worth around $2.86 trillion.

But there's a big difference between the two companies: Amazon is raking in enormous profits.

Amazon reported second-quarter revenue of $200.6 billion and net income of $62.6 billion, according to recent filings.

Meanwhile, Anthropic is still in the process of turning its spectacular revenue growth into sustainable profits.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Anthropic's second-quarter 2026 revenue was expected to more than double to around $10.9 billion, with the company potentially recording an operating profit for the first time. 

An operating profit, however, is not the same thing as net income.

At the kinds of valuation multiples typically seen among large companies in the Nasdaq 100, Fortune estimates Anthropic would need to generate somewhere in the region of $59 billion to $79 billion in annual net profit to justify a $2 trillion valuation. For now, it's nowhere close.

Anthropic's best argument for a multi-trillion dollar valuation is the extraordinary speed at which its revenues have been growing. The company said in May that its run-rate revenue had reached $47 billion, compared with $9 billion in 2025.

By the end of 2026, investors reportedly expect its annualized revenue to reach between $100 billion and $120 billion. Doubling its annual revenue generation in a matter of months is an impressive feat.

Anthropic said in February that its run-rate revenue had increased by more than tenfold annually over the previous three years.

Much of that growth has come from businesses adopting Claude AI models, with Anthropic appearing to make particularly strong gains in the enterprise market.

Data from payments platform Ramp showed that around 43.5 percent of US businesses paid for Anthropic subscriptions or tokens in July, compared with 39.7 percent for OpenAI and 6.2 percent for Google.

Investors are also betting heavily on the performance of Anthropic's AI models. 

Claude Opus 5, released last month, has ranked at the top of Arena AI's model leaderboards, while the company's more expensive Claude Fable 5 has also performed strongly.

That has helped fuel the argument among investors that Anthropic is one of the AI companies best positioned to benefit as businesses increasingly incorporate AI into their operations.

One investor told the Financial Times that although there were obvious challenges, Anthropic remained in a leading position in terms of performance, positioning and demand for exposure to the company.

But there are plenty of reasons for caution. Building and running cutting-edge AI models is extraordinarily expensive.

According to data cited by the Financial Times, Anthropic's models cost more than 2.5 times as much to run as OpenAI's, while cheaper Chinese open-weight models are putting further pressure on prices.

That creates a potentially uncomfortable problem for Anthropic. It can generate enormous revenues from AI, but if the cost of serving customers rises alongside demand, converting those revenues into profits becomes much harder.

Anthropic is also expected to reach the public markets before its better-known rival, OpenAI. The parent of ChatGPT was most recently valued at around $852 billion and is reportedly targeting a valuation of at least $1 trillion for its own upcoming IPO.

That makes Anthropic's reported $2 trillion ambition look particularly striking.

The company has already confidentially filed to go public, although the exact timing and valuation remain uncertain.

And after SpaceX's turbulent debut, investors will have plenty to watch out for. SpaceX shares have swung sharply since its IPO, at one point falling to around $104.83 before recently moving back above its $135 IPO price.

That volatility could provide a useful reality check for the next generation of mega-IPOs.