Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, posted a net loss of more than $80bn in the first half of 2026, according to the Wall Street Journal. The figure comes as markets look ahead to the company’s expected initial public offering.
The Journal said on Tuesday that the company could spend up to $750bn in coming years to secure additional computing capacity, including possible deals still under discussion.
Accounting charges behind the sharp rise in losses
According to the report, the main cause of the loss was $72bn in accounting charges tied to shifts in the value of convertible notes and other financial instruments that Anthropic issued to raise funds. A draft prospectus, a legal document companies file with financial regulators, showed the loss was up from $13bn a year earlier.
The figures highlight how costly the AI race has become, the report suggested, as investors question whether the money flowing into chips and data centres will eventually pay off.
Revenue growth and lower valuation talks
Anthropic’s revenue rose to $16.3bn in the six months ended June 30, up from $1.1bn a year earlier, the Journal reported. Its AI infrastructure spending nearly quadrupled to almost $9bn over the same period.
The company has benefited from demand for Claude Code, its coding assistant that developers use to write software and build apps. Even so, some current and prospective investors who attended Anthropic’s investor day in San Francisco, California, last week are weighing a lower valuation, four people familiar with the matter said.
Three of those people said the investors discussed a valuation of around $1.5 trillion. That is a significant step down from the roughly $2 trillion previously expected for a November share sale.
Risk factors and the company’s response
Anthropic also listed potential risk factors, including uncertainty over how to stop its products from causing harm, whether through sophisticated cyberattacks or blackmail by uncontrolled models.
Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment. The report, based on non-public information, could not be immediately verified. Earlier reporting in September had put the company’s 2025 net loss at $42bn, drawn from its IPO prospectus materials.
Separately, Anthropic reported last week that AI could be months away from learning to self-replicate on everyday home devices.
