Anthropic IPO Faces Public Backlash and Data Center Risks as Valuation Nears $2 Trillion

Anthropic is poised to hit the public market at a time when an increasing number of Americans are worried about artificial intelligence and are loudly opposing new data centers. That backlash is expected to be a key risk factor in Anthropic's IPO prospectus, according to people familiar with matter.

The Claude creator has been holding preliminary "test-the-water" meetings with bankers and investors in San Francisco, said the people, who asked not to be named because the sessions are confidential. In the meetings, CFO Krishna Rao is being asked about competition, margin pressure from open-source models, and what happens if there's a slowdown in the building of data centers, the sources said.

In June, Anthropic confidentially filed to go public in what will be among the biggest IPOs on record. Elon Musk's SpaceX, which competes with Anthropic through its AI division, raised $85.7 billion, including the underwriter option, two months ago. It's by far the largest offering to date.

Investors expect that Anthropic may top that, and project the company could float at a valuation of about $2 trillion, the people said.

Anthropic declined to comment.

Like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is pushing infrastructure partners to build out at warp speed in order to meet demand for advanced models and new services. Tech's hyperscalers are shelling out hundreds of billions of dollars this year on capital expenditures to fuel data center develop and purchase the graphics processing units needed to fill them.

But public sentiment isn't in their favor.

According to a Gallup survey published in May, seven in 10 Americans opposed AI data center construction in their area, with close to half of those polled "strongly opposed." Roughly a quarter of people surveyed are in favor, Gallup said.

With midterms less than three months away, politicians on both sides of the aisle have been pushing back on data center development, reflecting the anger of their constituents.

It was a key issue in Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, which was won by Rep. Byron Donalds, who has proposed restrictions on data centers in Florida. That same day Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order placing harsh standards on data center development in his state.

Companies are required to outline their risk factors as investor disclosures and for legal protection in their prospectus. SpaceX said in its risk factors section that, "Adverse global macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions may negatively affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects."

Compute capacity is directly correlated to revenue for AI labs like Anthropic, which is valued at close to $1 trillion in the private market. A slowdown could dent the historic growth rate for a company that just topped a $65 billion annual revenue run rate, as CNBC previously reported.