Nvidia Eyes $10B Investment as Anchor in Anthropic’s $100B IPO Bid
Anthropic’s Record-Breaking IPO and Nvidia’s Strategic Role
By Krystal Hu and Milana Vinn
Anthropic’s Ambitious IPO Plans
Sept 11 (Reuters) - Anthropic is in talks to bring Nvidia as an anchor investor into what could be the largest IPO in history, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Anthropic is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion that could value the artificial intelligence startup at around $2 trillion, the people said. Nvidia is considering investing up to $10 billion in the IPO, one of the sources added. The plans remain under discussion and could change, they cautioned, requesting anonymity because the discussions are confidential.
Nvidia’s Potential Involvement
Nvidia’s potential involvement in the IPO, which has not previously been reported, would give Anthropic an early strategic backer for the outsized offering, while further deepening ties between the chipmaker and one of its major customers. Bringing a deep-pocketed anchor investor like Nvidia onboard could boost investor confidence in the listing, which is shaping up to be a major test of public-market appetite for the enormous valuations and capital requirements of frontier AI labs.
Anthropic declined to comment. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Role of Anchor Investors in Mega IPOs
Institutional Commitments and Precedents
Anchor investors are typically institutional investors that commit to buy a set portion of an IPO before it is marketed more broadly, providing an early vote of confidence in the shares. It is increasingly common for mega IPOs to line up early institutional commitments, given the large amounts they seek to raise. Chip designer Arm’s anchor investors included Nvidia and Amazon, while Saudi Arabia’s PIF was among SpaceX’s anchor investors.
Anthropic’s Strategic Partnerships and Compute Needs
Dependence on Nvidia and Other Suppliers
The deepened relationship highlights the complex ties between AI model developers and the companies supplying the enormous amounts of computing power they require. Anthropic relies heavily on Nvidia GPUs, while also seeking to diversify its chip suppliers as demand for Claude has strained its available computing capacity.
Recent Investments and Partnerships
In November 2025, Nvidia said it would invest up to $10 billion in the AI startup as part of a broader partnership under which Anthropic committed to buy $30 billion of Microsoft Azure computing capacity powered by Nvidia chips.
Anthropic already counts the biggest tech companies in the world as backers. These include Amazon and Google, who are also its major compute suppliers. In April, Anthropic said it would commit more than $100 billion over a decade to Amazon’s AWS, while using more than 1 million of Amazon’s Trainium2 chips. It has also agreed with Google and Broadcom to add multiple gigawatts of TPU capacity.
Efforts to Expand Compute and Control Costs
The company has been trying to access more compute as its revenue has surged. It is also working to gain greater control over its hardware costs by forming an in-house team to design custom chips tailored to Claude.
IPO Timeline, Valuation, and Market Impact
Expected Completion and Valuation Growth
The listing, which is expected to complete before the U.S. midterm elections in November, would mark another jump in Anthropic’s valuation. The Claude maker raised $65 billion in May at a post-money valuation of $965 billion. Its annualized revenue run rate had climbed above $65 billion by the end of July, from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, according to the company. The potential valuation also hinges in part on company projections of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue in 2028, Reuters previously reported.
IPO Market Context
The expected Anthropic IPO added to a string of blockbuster listings that has propelled the U.S. IPO market toward a record year, following Elon Musk's SpaceX's debut in June.
U.S. IPOs, excluding special-purpose acquisition companies, have raised a record $137 billion through the end of August, according to Dealogic.
(Reporting by Krystal Hu in San Francisco and Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Echo Wang and David Gregorio)
