Anthropic posts $80bn loss as IPO valuation faces pressure
Recorded a net loss of more than $80bn in the first half of 2026, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Al Jazeera. Accounting charges tied to…
Anthropic posts $80bn loss in the first half of 2026, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Al Jazeera, as investors assess the artificial intelligence company ahead of its planned initial public offering. The reported loss was driven mainly by accounting charges tied to changes in the value of funding instruments.
The company’s revenue rose to $16.3bn in the six-month period that ended June 30, while spending on AI infrastructure nearly quadrupled to almost $9bn, the Journal reported. The figures highlight the cost of expanding computing capacity as Anthropic prepares for a share sale.
The loss was more than $80bn. Anthropic did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, and the report on non-public information could not be immediately verified.
Accounting charges drove most of the loss
The Wall Street Journal said $72bn of the loss came from accounting charges related to changes in the value of convertible notes and other financial instruments Anthropic issued to raise funding. A draft prospectus for the IPO put the loss at $13bn a year earlier.
The figures are reported financial results, not a measure of cash spent during the period. The charges related to changes in the valuation of financial instruments, while the company’s infrastructure spending was reported separately. That distinction matters as investors weigh the cost of funding the computing capacity needed to develop and run AI products.
Anthropic also indicated it could spend up to $750bn in coming years to acquire more computing capacity, the Journal reported. Potential deals were under discussion, but the report did not identify them.
Investors weigh the IPO valuation
Four people familiar with the matter told Reuters that some current and prospective investors who attended Anthropic’s investor day in San Francisco last week were considering a lower valuation after the latest financial disclosures.
Three of those people said investors at the event discussed a valuation of around $1.5 trillion. That was below the roughly $2 trillion valuation previously expected for the November share sale, according to the Reuters report.
The prospectus disclosures also put revenue growth alongside rising costs. Anthropic’s revenue increased from $1.1bn a year earlier to $16.3bn in the six-month period ending June 30. The Journal reported that AI infrastructure spending climbed to almost $9bn over the same period.
That spending matters beyond the company’s prospective investors: the scale of its planned computing purchases could shape how quickly it expands the capacity behind Claude and other AI services. The sources do not detail how the potential deals would be structured or how much of the stated spending would be committed.
Anthropic has benefited from the popularity of Claude Code, its coding assistant used by developers to write software and build apps, Al Jazeera reported. The company also listed possible risks in its prospectus, including uncertainty about preventing products from causing harm through sophisticated cyberattacks or blackmail by uncontrolled models.
Reuters previously reported a net loss of $42bn for 2025 as part of its reporting on Anthropic’s IPO prospectus. Anthropic reported last week that AI could be months away from learning to self-replicate on everyday home devices, according to Al Jazeera.
Source: aljazeera.com
