AI giant Anthropic woos potential investors ahead of stock market debut

Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic saw its revenue surge by 45% to $16.8bn (£12.7bn) in the three months to the end of September, the BBC understands.

The figures were revealed by the Claude-developer in a briefing for prospective investors on Wednesday as it lays the groundwork for a stock market listing, which is expected to take place before the end of the year.

It comes as some tech stocks, including firms that make the chips and other hardware that power data centres, have fallen in recent days over concerns about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI infrastructure.

An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment.

Anthropic's revenue has risen in successive quarters this year, from $4.7bn in the first three months to $11.6bn the following period.

The company also reportedly told investors during the event at its headquarters in San Francisco that it had made a profit for the second quarter in a row.

Its revenue figures, along with those of rival OpenAI, offer an important gauge of the AI industry's growth and ability to finance the infrastructure needed to develop the technology.

Stocks in some US technology companies dropped on Wednesday over concerns around investments in AI.

Shares in chip makers - including AMD, Nvidia and Intel - fell sharply.

In Asia, shares in Japanese tech investment firm Softbank were down by more than 9% on Thursday. South Korean semiconductor giants also dropped, with Samsung falling by 9.5% and SK Hynix 11% lower.

Tech-heavy indexes in the region were also down. Trading on South Korea's Kospi and Kosdaq was temporarily halted after falling by more than 8%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 lost close to 5%.