Anthropic tells IPO investors it finally earns more than its GPUs cost 🧮

Anthropic told prospective investors it generated $1.70 in revenue for every $1 spent on computing power in the third quarter, a sharp reversal from a year earlier when the figure stood at roughly $0.63, the Financial Times reported. The disclosure comes weeks before the artificial intelligence company's planned November initial public offering, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley reportedly leading an offering that targets a valuation above $2 trillion.

Quarterly revenue climbed 50% to $16.8 billion, up from $11.5 billion in the second quarter and about $4.8 billion in the first, according to figures shared with investors. Executives placed operating margins at 11% and said Anthropic was cash flow positive, marking a second straight quarter of adjusted profit. In 2025, Anthropic reported about $4.6 billion in revenue against $7.33 billion in compute spending and an operating loss topping $8 billion excluding write-downs tied to earlier fundraising. Its second-quarter adjusted profit excluded stock-based pay, and an 80% gross margin figure left out training costs, BeInCrypto reported.

Growth has nonetheless cooled. Over the summer, some investors told the FT that annualized revenue would pass $100 billion by year-end; research firm SemiAnalysis now projects roughly $74 billion, up from a $65 billion estimate at the end of July. The FT cited several pressures, including Meta and Microsoft leaning more on in-house AI models, Anthropic's reduction of distillation services that had contributed 5% to 7% of revenue, and a price war with OpenAI as low-cost Chinese labs add pressure. Anthropic priced Claude Haiku 5.5 about 75% below its predecessor this month.

Chief Executive Dario Amodei and Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao emphasized margins and profitability at the investor event while warning that the figures could shift as Anthropic invests heavily in compute and biomedical research. The company has committed at least $518 billion over a decade to cloud services, computing, and infrastructure, and rising interest rates could slow those plans, the FT noted.