Anthropic, the developer of the Claude chatbot, has told prospective shareholders that its technology could pose “existential risks to humanity”, according to its long-awaited initial public offering prospectus. The filing, shared with a small group of partners and reported by the Financial Times, also shows a net loss of about $42 billion (€36.9 billion) for last year.
Almost a third of the S-1, the document a company files with the US Securities and Exchange Commission before listing, is devoted to risk factors. Among them is the possibility that more advanced models could manipulate, blackmail or behave in other unpredictable ways. Anthropic’s own research has shown autonomous models sabotaging code, assisting fraud and manipulating information in controlled tests. The company has not commented publicly on the reports.
The financial disclosures carry their own warnings. Revenue rose twelvefold to almost $4.6 billion in 2025, but operating expenses reached $12.65 billion, more than half of it on computing and infrastructure, leaving an operating loss of more than $8 billion. The net loss included an accounting charge of roughly $34 billion linked to financing that could later convert into shares. Close to a quarter of last year’s revenue came from two customers, and many of the largest clients are not tied to long-term contracts. Anthropic plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in the coming years, and it held $20.28 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of 2025.
Growth has continued this year. Revenue reached $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2026, and the company is on track for a second consecutive quarter of operating profit on an adjusted basis. Backers expect a listing on the Nasdaq this autumn at a valuation above $2 trillion, more than double the $965 billion set in its May funding round, which would make it the most highly valued IPO ever.
The prospectus arrives during a sharp debate over AI risk. Chief executive Dario Amodei told the UN Security Council last week that AI was “the most important global security issue facing the world today”. President Donald Trump has rejected his call to slow development, although he hosted Amodei for a private dinner on Sunday. The Pentagon classified Anthropic as a supply chain risk after the company refused to let its models be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance, a decision a federal appeals court upheld last week.
