Anthropic IPO Draft Prospectus Revealed: $16.3 Billion in Revenue, $80.7 Billion Net Loss in Half a Year

[[**Anthropic IPO Draft: $16.3 Billion Revenue and $80.7 Billion Net Loss in the First Half of 2026, of Which $72 Billion Is a Book Revaluation; the Real Risk Is That Revenue Is Not Locked In Yet It Carries Over $600 Billion in Rigid Computing Commitments.**

**Key Points**

**1. The Huge Book Loss Is Mostly an Accounting Illusion**

Of the $80.7 billion net loss, $72 billion comes from the revaluation of convertible notes and other instruments, not actual cash outlays; rising valuations actually push the book loss higher.

**2. Computing Spending Is High but Revenue Is Growing Faster**

In the first half of 2026, computing and infrastructure spending was nearly $9 billion, about 55% of revenue, down from over 200% in the same period last year; on an adjusted basis it was already making money in the third quarter.

**3. Revenue Depends on a Few Pay-as-You-Go Customers**

In 2025, more than 80% of revenue came from usage-based customers; of the $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, more than $3.2 billion came from two major customers, and many major customers have not signed long-term purchase commitments.

**4. Over $600 Billion in Rigid Long-Term Computing Contracts Is the Core Risk**

Forward computing and infrastructure commitments already signed exceed $600 billion and could reach as high as $750 billion; Reuters said about 80% of the then-$518 billion was irrevocable or required minimum payments, so revenue is unstable while rigid payments are borne. 2026-10-22 17:17 Lost $80.7 billion in half a year? America's top AI player is also struggling to keep going Blue Character Plan Quick Overview

This article is from the WeChat public account: Blue Character Plan, author: Huang Xiaobin

On October 20, as the media exposed Anthropic's draft IPO prospectus, a set of stunning numbers shocked all of Silicon Valley:

In the first half of 2026, this large-model giant's revenue surged to $16.3 billion, nearly 14 times the $1.1 billion in the same period last year; but looking down at the income statement made hearts sink—the half-year net loss was as high as $80.7 billion...

That is equivalent to $440 million evaporating from the books every day on average as soon as one opens one's eyes.

But if one's eyes stop only at the "$80.7 billion loss," one would be misreading it.

In Silicon Valley's capital game, this $80.7 billion huge loss is actually a standard "paper illusion." And turning to another page of the prospectus, a more thought-provoking bill is revealed:

A batch of long-term computing and infrastructure contracts spanning many years into the future, totaling more than $600 billion, that Anthropic signed with computing giants such as Google and Amazon.

If the additional agreements under negotiation are finalized, the total commitment could reach as high as $750 billion.

Making only $16.3 billion in half a year, yet rushing to sign hundreds of billions of dollars in computing leasing contracts in advance... Is Anthropic being a bit too bold?

"The More Valuable, the More Money-Losing"

To see clearly what Anthropic is thinking, one must first understand what that scary $80.7 billion loss is about.

Why can a company that brought in $16.3 billion in half a year show an astronomical book loss of $80.7 billion? The answer is actually a bit counterintuitive:

The company's valuation rose too fast, which instead pushed the book loss higher.

According to the draft prospectus disclosed by the media, of this $80.7 billion loss, a full $72 billion was not real money spent at all, but was related to the revaluation of financing instruments such as "convertible notes."

To put it in plain terms: when Anthropic raised funds in its early years, it issued investors a type of "IOU" that could later be converted into stock. As the company became more valuable, these financing instruments in investors' hands also became more valuable.

Under applicable accounting rules, the company needs to recalculate the value of these financing instruments, and the related appreciation increases book liabilities and is recorded as a current-period loss. So a big rise in valuation is originally a good thing, but on the income statement it turns into a scary loss.

What is hard to bear is that, despite such a large loss, this $72 billion was not used to buy a single Nvidia graphics card, nor was it paid into any programmer's salary card; it is purely a numbers game caused by the company being too valuable.

So, after stripping out this $72 billion "fake loss," where did the money Anthropic spent actually go?

Computing and infrastructure are one of the big items.

In the first half of 2026, Anthropic's spending on computing and data center infrastructure alone approached $9 billion, nearly four times the $2.3 billion in the same period last year, and in half a year it even exceeded last year's total annual computing bill of $7.3 billion.

Converted into a more intuitive ratio: for every $1 received from customers, about 55 cents is spent on computing and infrastructure, and the remaining about 45 cents still has to pay for scientists' salaries, R&D, promotion and other expenses.

However, if one does the accounts carefully, there is actually good news hidden here:

In the first half of last year, Anthropic earned $1.1 billion but had to spend $2.3 billion on computing, with computing costs at more than 200% of revenue; by the first half of this year, revenue soared nearly 14 times to $16.3 billion, and although computing spending rose to $9 billion, its share of revenue had fallen sharply to about 55%.

Even in the third quarter of this year, quarterly revenue further climbed to $16.8 billion, and the company had already begun making money on an adjusted basis.

Logically, seeing the speed of making money finally outrun the speed of burning money, Wall Street should be opening champagne to celebrate.

Why are institutions instead sweating over it at this very moment?

Still Living a Tightrope Life

Behind Anthropic's tens of billions in revenue, the biggest backers are the enterprise customers paying for Claude.

Relying on its Claude model's long-document processing, compliance and security, and coding capabilities—especially the hit tool Claude Code—Anthropic has turned the businesses of banks, law firms, insurers, and tech companies into its main cash cow.

According to a report published by Menlo Ventures in 2025, Anthropic's share of the enterprise API market rose from 12% in 2023 to about 40%, surpassing OpenAI's 27%.

However, if you open up the customer ledger, you'll find that even becoming the "sales champion" doesn't mean Anthropic can rest easy.

According to Reuters, in 2025 more than 80% of Anthropic's revenue came from usage-based customers—like paying your household utility bills, you pay for what you use. This model looks like a revenue surge, but it actually hides two major risks.

First, a large chunk of its revenue is held in the hands of a few big spenders.

According to the new draft prospectus disclosed by The Wall Street Journal, of the $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, a full one-fifth—more than $3.2 billion—came from just two major customers.

Second, these big spenders may not have signed any "long-term meal ticket."

In the traditional enterprise software business, you can sign three- or five-year procurement contracts with customers to lock in part of revenue in advance. But according to disclosures, many of Anthropic's largest customers have not signed long-term procurement commitments, so in theory these big Anthropic backers could reduce or even stop spending.

Once these super-large customers decide to cut budgets, turn to building their own models, or hand some tasks to competitors, Anthropic's tens of billions in revenue could shrink sharply.

To sum up its situation in one sentence: whether customers will still be willing to spend this much next year is completely unknown.

If it were just a nimble software company, fewer customers could be met by cutting expenses—tighten the belt and it could still get by. But the fatal problem is that, without having locked in long-term revenue, Anthropic turned around and signed an almost irrevocable sky-high bill on the cost side—the computing power reservation contract worth up to $750 billion mentioned earlier.

No wonder Wall Street has to gasp at this.

Who Exactly Is Working for Whom?

More than $600 billion in forward computing power and infrastructure commitments amount to a super bet Anthropic has placed.

Among them, Anthropic committed to purchasing about $111 billion from Google Cloud, about $110 billion from Amazon AWS, and about $31 billion from Microsoft. In addition to the cloud giants, it also purchases Nvidia chip computing power through suppliers such as Nscale and Lambda, with related agreements worth up to about $86 billion.

In addition, around leasing arrangements for Broadcom and Google TPU chips, it has taken on more than $160 billion in forward payment obligations. Beyond these main contracts, there are other computing power and infrastructure arrangements, bringing total commitments to more than $600 billion.

But even harsher than the hundreds of billions of dollars figure are the rigid payment clauses in the contracts.

Documents disclosed by Reuters in September showed that of the $518 billion in total commitments at that time, about 80% were irrevocable or required payment regardless of actual usage. Some agreements with Google and Amazon even require that if actual consumption does not reach the agreed amount, the shortfall must be made up.

This makes the whole thing seem very surreal.

It's like opening a trendy restaurant where all the customers are walk-ins who don't buy membership cards—even if the line stretches to the end of the street today, no one can guarantee they'll come back to eat next year.

But to secure the venue and equipment first, you sign a ten-year lease in one go and promise suppliers to buy a certain amount of ingredients every year. Even if three years later the restaurant is deserted and you're swatting flies, the rent and procurement payments still cannot be short by a single cent.

So why, knowing the risks are huge, does Anthropic still sign such rigid contracts?

Because without securing computing power in advance, it might not even have the qualification to stay at the table.

In this Silicon Valley game of power, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft play an extremely delicate "triple role": they are major shareholders investing money in Anthropic, landlords collecting computing power tolls from it, and at the same time they hold their own beloved children like Gemini and Copilot, fighting Claude tooth and nail in the market.

The prospectus reveals a rather realistic detail: in fact, the scale of computing power Anthropic wants has already exceeded the upper limit these cloud giants are willing to supply. To avoid being strangled by giants that are "both shareholders and competitors," and to prevent one day alienating enterprise customers due to a computing power gap, it can only sign sky-high long-term contracts to lock down big vendors' capacity while gritting its teeth and turning to second-tier service providers with less track record, such as Nscale and Lambda, betting real money for the next decade on the table in advance.

At the top are the chip overlords and cloud giants sitting securely in the fisherman's seat, using ten-year rigid contracts to lock in hundreds of billions of dollars of future cash flow regardless of drought or flood; while Anthropic, standing in the spotlight, appears on the surface to be a glamorous trillion-dollar tech unicorn, but in the whole chain it is nothing more than a slightly plumper shrimp.

References:

Anthropic IPO draft prospectus (2026-10-20)

36Kr: "Anthropic Prospectus Latest Disclosure: Revenue $16.3 Billion, Book Loss as High as $80.7 Billion"

Sina Finance: "Anthropic Submits IPO Prospectus: Last Year Revenue Soared 12-Fold, Net Loss $42 Billion"

Shanghai Securities News: "Anthropic Sprinting Toward the Largest IPO in History"

New Intelligence: "Loss of $80,000,000,000 in Half a Year! Anthropic Prospectus Exposed"

Zhidongxi: "Anthropic, Half-Year Huge Loss of 538.9 Billion"

AI Frontline: "Valuation Cut by $500 Billion on the Eve of Listing! Anthropic's Latest Prospectus Reveals Half-Year Huge Loss of 80.7 Billion—How Much Longer Can the Myth of Huge Profits in Large Models Last?" AI Industry Signal Channel: Frontier Technology

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