Anthropic, a frontrunner in artificial intelligence (AI), is causing massive ripples across the global technology and financial markets with the financial statements it released ahead of its initial public offering (IPO). Preparing for a November listing, Anthropic recorded a massive net loss of 80.7 billion dollars—approximately 102 trillion won in Korean currency—in the first half of this year. This is a snowballing figure compared to the loss scale of 1.3 billion dollars in the same period last year.

The primary cause of this massive deficit is not cash expenditure incurred from actual business operations, but rather accounting evaluation losses arising from the surge in the fair value of convertible bonds as the company's value increased. In reality, computing capacity and infrastructure construction costs spent by Anthropic during the first half amounted to about 9 billion dollars, a significant increase from 2.3 billion dollars in the same period last year. 

The amount promised to be invested in cloud services and computing infrastructure over the next decade alone exceeds a minimum of 5,180 trillion won. In an AI ecosystem where such astronomical funds are injected, companies are putting their lives on the line to maintain technological supremacy, while investors are simultaneously casting sharp investigative eyes on whether this immense investment will lead to actual profits.

Behind these financial indicators coexist mixed earnings signals. At an investor briefing held on October 14, Anthropic announced that third-quarter revenue increased by 45 percent from the previous quarter to reach 16.8 billion dollars. This was a favorable factor that partially allayed market concerns over the costs of developing AI systems. However, looking closely at the detailed indicators, a deceleration in growth speed is detected. Compared to the previous transition from the first quarter to the second quarter where revenue more than doubled, the growth trend in the third quarter appeared somewhat more moderate.

With these signs of growth slowdown overlapping with massive accounting losses, some investors are moving to re-evaluate Anthropic's corporate value at around 1.5 trillion dollars, lower than previous expectations. Anthropic's upcoming listing is evaluated as a touchstone that will determine the short-term fate of the entire AI market beyond simply an individual company's market entry. Depending on the success or failure of Anthropic's IPO, the investment fervor of the overall AI industry—including rival OpenAI, which is weighing its listing for next year—is expected to be significantly affected.

One of the driving forces that allowed Anthropic to soar by drawing in such massive capital lies in the success of "Claude Code," a coding assistant experiencing explosive popularity among developers. As the productivity-enhancing effects of Claude Code are proven in the process of developers writing software and building applications, it is solidly laying a concrete revenue base. However, the multi-billion-dollar scale of accounting burdens stemming from the revaluation of bond values is complicating outside perspectives on the company's financial soundness.

During the full year of 2025 as well, Anthropic recorded a net loss of 4.2 billion dollars, which also mostly originated from the increase in the value of convertible bonds. The actual operating loss scale for 2025 is estimated to be around 8.1 billion dollars against a revenue of 4.6 billion dollars. Ultimately, the reality faced by Anthropic shows that overcoming the immense financial pressure created by AI infrastructure maintenance costs and complex capital structures—despite innovative technology and steep external growth—is the core task for sustainability.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]