Leading artificial intelligence developer Anthropic has delivered a 45% jump in third-quarter revenue, reaching $16.8 billion (£12.7 billion) in the three months ending September, according to sources familiar with the company’s investor briefing obtained by the BBC.
The explosive growth figure was shared Wednesday with potential investors during a presentation at Anthropic’s San Francisco headquarters, as the firm behind the Claude large language model lays the groundwork for an initial public offering (IPO) projected to launch before the end of 2024. A company spokesperson declined to confirm or comment on the unpublished financial data when contacted by reporters.
This strong quarterly result extends a pattern of consecutive growth for Anthropic throughout 2024. Revenue climbed from $4.7 billion in the first quarter to $11.6 billion in the second quarter, and the firm notched a second consecutive profitable quarter, according to the briefing materials.
Anthropic’s financial performance, paired with results from industry rival OpenAI, serves as a key benchmark for measuring the broader AI sector’s actual growth trajectory and its capacity to fund the massive computing infrastructure required to advance next-generation model development.
The upbeat earnings update comes at a moment of heightened market volatility across AI-focused and tech hardware stocks, as investor anxiety grows over the enormous capital outlays required to build out AI capacity. On Wednesday, major U.S. technology shares pulled back, with leading semiconductor manufacturers including AMD, Nvidia and Intel recording sharp share price drops.
Market unease spread to Asian exchanges Thursday morning. Shares in Japanese technology investment conglomerate SoftBank fell 9%, while South Korean semiconductor leaders Samsung dropped 8.4% and SK Hynix declined more than 6%. South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi index tumbled 7.6% in early morning trading.
The recent market declines follow critical remarks from Hock Tan, chief executive officer of U.S. tech manufacturing firm Broadcom, delivered at an industry conference in Singapore earlier this week. Tan argued that many investors hold “extreme expectations” for AI returns that are disconnected from actual market fundamentals, comparing current AI investment sentiment to gambling in a casino where many participants “have no clue” about the underlying risks.
Beyond market concerns over infrastructure spending, the AI industry continues to grapple with widespread debate over model safety. Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed his firm would not pursue an IPO in 2024, prioritizing work to address outstanding safety risks before moving forward with a public listing. The ChatGPT developer is also preparing for a blockbuster IPO that is projected to value the company at more than $1 trillion.
Anthropic has itself been a prominent voice in calls for more deliberate AI development, with CEO Dario Amodei repeatedly urging the industry to slow the pace of advanced model rollouts to mitigate unaddressed safety risks. Despite these public concerns over sector risks, the company has continued its global expansion, opening a new regional office in Singapore on the same day it held its investor briefing in San Francisco.