Anthropic最快下月登陆资本市场，这场IPO远不止这家AI公司的公开亮相，它同时是检验美国经济的试金石，数万亿美元的资本命运系于此役。这家推出Claude对话机器人的企业，是AI行业的支柱型巨头。它在一级市场估值接近1万亿美元，累计融资超1300亿美元；本次上市有望募资1000亿美元，一举跻身全球市值最高上市公司之列。但它承载的意义远不止于此。
Anthropic与其头号对手OpenAI，处在一整条庞大合作与供应商生态链的顶端：算力基建服务商、芯片厂商、能源企业、一众AI初创公司，过去四年都大举投入，押注AI产品需求会持续走高。
Anthropic上市，将让市场第一次深度看清支撑AI热潮的核心业务基本面，检验这一轮景气周期能否持续。市场需要找到答案：对AI服务的旺盛需求，能否持续支撑芯片、数据中心以及其他基础设施的巨额投入？还是Anthropic的业绩将证明，AI增长存在天花板？
Seligman Ventures投资人、拥有近40年科技行业从业经验的乌梅什·帕德瓦尔表示：“对整个市场而言，它就是风向标。”
如果Anthropic上市表现不及预期，将打击投资者信心，进而引发大范围抛售，市场会开始质疑AI繁荣还能维持多久。倘若IPO顺利收官，则有望提振大盘，并为更多AI企业打开上市通道。
股市本就情绪紧绷，科技股本月普遍走弱，AI芯片厂商领跌。费城半导体指数从6月高点回落26%，已经进入熊市（较近期高点下跌20%及以上，代表投资者恐慌情绪显著升温）。
过去两周，微软取消了和数据中心服务商Nscale的合作。调研机构Gartner的一份报告预测，为AI企业提供算力与数据资源的新云厂商（neocloud）中，有80%或将倒闭。对冲基金城堡投资（Citadel）创始人、亿万富翁肯·格里芬直言，AI领域的投资者“几乎肯定身处泡沫之中”。
一系列负面信号，加剧了市场对AI基建巨额投入的担忧。亚马逊、Meta、谷歌、微软均披露，今年计划在数据中心等AI基础设施上合计投入至少7400亿美元。追踪投融资数据的PitchBook统计，自2022年以来，一级市场投资者已经向Anthropic、OpenAI以及其他AI公司注入1.1万亿美元资金。
随着一级市场投入水涨船高，二级市场对AI板块的依赖度也越来越高。标普500指数前十大成分股市值合计超1万亿美元，其中八家为科技公司；十大权重股占指数总比重超40%，十年前这一比例还不足20%。
一旦Anthropic被纳入指数，它很有可能挤走伯克希尔·哈撒韦或是礼来（仅有的两家万亿市值非科技企业），跻身前十。
供应链服务商Circular Technology全球研究与市场情报主管布拉德·加斯特沃思称：“所有人都押注在这一次IPO上。一旦搞砸，大盘都会被带崩。”
本月，Anthropic在旧金山总部向投资者展示财务数据与增长规划。多项数据看起来十分亮眼：公司三季度营收168亿美元，环比增长45%。但投资者注意到，其二季度营收增速曾高达141%，增速明显放缓。
市场如何解读这次放缓至关重要。如果放缓原因是被OpenAI、低成本开源模型抢走份额，那么说明AI服务整体需求依旧稳健；如果放缓源于全行业AI需求萎缩，市场的反应将会剧烈得多。
Anthropic拒绝就此置评。
过去一年，Anthropic是硅谷最炙手可热的企业，Claude Code产品彻底改变了程序员的编码工作方式，推动营收暴涨，一级市场投资者将其估值推高至9650亿美元，超越OpenAI。
为承接AI业务需求，Anthropic签下数千亿美元的长期算力租赁协议，向谷歌、亚马逊、微软采购算力，同时向英伟达采购芯片、向Nscale等企业租用数据中心。而为Anthropic提供服务的厂商，又继续向上游供应商砸下重金。
但今年夏天，Anthropic部分客户开始认为，在词元（token，AI处理、生成数据的计费单位）上开销过高，转而寻找成本更低的替代方案。Meta作为Anthropic最大客户之一，原本预计每年在其技术上投入最高100亿美元，后续缩减开支，切换至其他AI模型。
今年上市的部分AI企业股价已经走弱：硅谷AI芯片厂商Cerebras股价较5月发行价下跌约40%；AI基建公司Accelevation当前股价，较9月18美元的发行价跌去约三分之一；马斯克旗下SpaceX在6月上市，股价也从高点大幅回落，只是仍较发行价高出约9%。
在此背景下，IPO市场整体降温。面向AI行业提供核电配套的Holtec上月撤回上市申请；OpenAI核心投资方软银旗下的数据中心企业SB Energy，以及为数据中心配套供电的Aggreko，双双推迟上市计划。
追踪IPO动态的Renaissance Capital资深策略师马修·肯尼迪说：“AI基建是今年IPO市场的核心主线，同时也是近几周抛售潮里受冲击最重的板块。”
投行已经提醒企业，现在很难拿到两个月前预期的估值。高盛CEO戴维·所罗门在本月财报电话会上表示，IPO窗口虽然没有关闭，但想要拿到今夏预期估值的企业，大概率只能选择等待。
“9月市场已经明显走弱。”他说道。
Anthropic的营收增速放缓，进一步加深市场疑虑。此前市场预期其IPO估值最高可达2万亿美元，但在增长失速、大盘低迷的环境下，知情人士称，部分投资者已经开始讨论1.5万亿至1.7万亿美元的估值区间。
AI行业高管们正努力安抚市场情绪。芯片大厂台积电CEO魏哲家本月表态，台积电的利润增长没有天花板。
上周末，AI投入担忧持续发酵，大盘再度下挫，以科技股为主的纳斯达克指数创下6月以来最大单日跌幅。
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Anthropic is fast on the capital market next month, and the IPO is much more than this AI company’s public appearance, and it is also a litmus test of the United States economy, in which trillions of dollars of capital are destined for it. The company that launched Claude Dialogue robots is the backbone of the AI industry. Its first-tier market valuation is close to $1 trillion, with cumulative financing exceeding $130 billion; it is expected to raise $100 billion this time, one of the top listed companies in global market value. But it carries much more than that.
Anthropic, together with his number-one opponent, Open AI, is at the top of a vast cooperative and supplier ecological chain: a computer-based service provider, a chip manufacturer, an energy company, and a group of AI start-ups, which have invested in the past four years, and which is expected to keep their demand high.
The listing of Anthropic will allow the market to see for the first time in depth the core business fundamentals that underpin the Ai boom and to test the sustainability of this landscape cycle. Markets need to find the answer: can the strong demand for AI services sustain the huge investments in chips, data centres and other infrastructure? Or will the performance of Anthropic prove that AI growth has a ceiling?
Seligman Ventures investors, Umesh Padwar, who has been in the scientific and technological industry for nearly 40 years, said: “It is the wind in the market as a whole.”
If Anthropic does not perform as expected, it will undermine investor confidence and lead to large-scale sales, and the market will begin to question how long the AI boom will last. If IPO were to be successful, it would be possible to boost the momentum and open up access to more AI businesses.
The stock market was tense, the technology stock generally weakened this month and the AI chip company fell. The Philadelphia semiconductor index, which fell by 26 per cent from its high point in June, has entered Bear City (a 20 per cent drop or more from its recent high point and a significant rise in investor panic).
Over the past two weeks, Microsoft has cancelled its cooperation with the data centre service provider, Nscale. A report by the research agency Gartner predicts that 80 per cent of the new cloud manufacturers (neocloud) that provide computing and data resources to AI enterprises will either be closed down. Citadel, founder of the Citadel, the billionaire Ken Griffin, put it bluntly that investors in the AI field “almost certainly are in a bubble”.
A number of negative signals have heightened the market ' s concern about the huge investment in AI infrastructure. Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft have all revealed that this year it is planned to invest at least $740 billion in AI infrastructure such as data centres. PitchBook, which tracks investment financing data, has injected $1.1 trillion from first-tier market investors to Anthropic, Open AI and other AI companies since 2022.
The dependence of the secondary market on the AI plate is also increasing as the level I market increases. The market value of the top 10 components of the Standard 500 index was over $1 trillion, of which eight were technology companies; the total weight share of the top 10 was over 40 per cent, compared with less than 20 per cent 10 years ago.
Once Anthropic is included in the index, it is very likely that it will be able to squeeze Birkhel Khasaway or Rao (only two trillions of non-technology enterprises) into the top 10.
“All bet on this IPO. If you screw it up, you'll lose the big plate."
This month, Anthropic demonstrated financial data and growth planning to investors at San Francisco headquarters. Many of the data appear to be very bright: the company received $16.8 billion in three quarters, an increase of 45 per cent in the ring. Investors noted, however, that the rate of increase in the second quarter of their camps had been as high as 141 per cent, with a marked slowdown.
How markets interpret this slowdown is crucial. If the slowdown is due to a share taken by Open AI, a low-cost open source model, then the overall demand for AI services remains robust; if the slowdown results from a contraction in sector-wide AI demand, the market response will be much more dramatic.
Anthropic refused to comment.
In the past year, Anthropic was the hottest firm in Silicon Valley, and Claude Code products radically changed the programmer ' s way of coding, boosting the boom, with first-level market investors pushing their valuation up to $965 billion, above Open AI.
In order to meet the operational requirements of AI, Anthropic signed a long-term credit lease agreement of hundreds of billions of dollars to procure credit from Google, Amazon and Microsoft, while purchasing chips from British Wida and renting data centres from Nscale and others. The vendor, which served Anthropic, continued to hit heavy money on upstream suppliers.
This summer, however, some Anthropic clients began to believe that the terminologies (token, AI processing, data-producing unit of account) were too expensive and instead sought lower-cost alternatives. Meta, one of the largest clients of Anthropic, was expected to invest up to $10 billion annually in its technology, with subsequent cost reductions to other AI models.
The share price of some of the AI companies listed this year has weakened: the stock price of the Silicon Valley AI chip manufacturer Cerebras has fallen by about 40 per cent over the price issued in May; the current equity price of AI Capital has fallen by about one third over the price issued in September for $18; and the price of SpaceX under Mask was listed in June and dropped sharply from a high point, although it is still about 9 per cent above the price issued.
Against this background, the IPO market as a whole cooled. Holtec, which provides nuclear power packages to the AI industry, withdrew its listing last month; SB Energy, a data centre enterprise under the soft silver flag of the Open AI core investor, and Aggreko, which provides power to the data centre, deferred the listing.
“Ai Foundation is the central focus of this year's IPO market, and it is also the most affected plate in recent weeks of sales.
The investment bank has reminded the enterprise that it is now difficult to obtain the expected valuation two months ago. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon indicated at this month ' s press conference that, while the IPO window had not been closed, the probability of getting the expected valuation this summer would have to wait.
“The market is already clearly weak in September.” He said.
Anthropic ' s growth rate slowed, further exacerbating market misgivings. The market had previously expected its IPO valuation to be up to $2 trillion, but in an environment of sluggish growth and low growth, informed sources claimed that some investors had started discussing valuation ranges of $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.
AI executives are trying to calm market sentiment. The CEO Wei Cheol family of the large chip plant declared this month that there was no ceiling for the increase in profits from the station.
Last weekend, AI was worried about continued fermentation, with a new setback, with the largest single-day decline in the NASDAQ index since June, dominated by technology.
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