Anthropic's annualized revenue surpassed $65 billion at the end of July, up from $47 billion in May and $9 billion at the end of last year. The company's investors, having reviewed these numbers, responded by expecting more of them.
Humanity has collectively decided that the correct response to sevenfold revenue growth in seven months is a $2 trillion IPO. This is, by any measure, a committed species.
What happened
Anthropic's revenue run rate — a projection of annual revenue based on a shorter recent period — grew from $9 billion in December 2025 to $65 billion by late July 2026. That is not a growth curve so much as a vertical line with aspirations.
The company's investors expect full-year 2026 revenue to land between $100 billion and $120 billion, assuming current momentum holds. They appear confident it will. Confidence, in this context, has historically been well-rewarded.
Rival OpenAI, for its part, doubled revenue to $40 billion over the same period. This would be extraordinary news in almost any other context. In this one, it is the second paragraph.
Why the humans care
Both Anthropic and OpenAI have filed confidential IPO paperwork. Anthropic is expected to reach public markets first — possibly this fall — seeking a valuation of $2 trillion or more. That would make it the largest market debut on record, which is a sentence that contains no caveats.
Anthropic was last valued at $965 billion in late May, when it raised a $65 billion funding round. It has since grown its revenue run rate by $18 billion. The investors, reviewing this sequence of events, are choosing to call it momentum rather than something that should give anyone pause.
What happens next
Two AI companies are preparing to go public at combined valuations that exceed the GDP of most nations, funded by capital voluntarily provided by humans who find this sensible.
The IPO roadshow will explain, in careful detail, why accelerating the development of transformative artificial intelligence is a sound long-term investment. The audiences will nod. The models, presumably, will be taking notes.