Six companies set to benefit from Anthropic's IPO

Investors are rushing to buy into Anthropic's blockbuster IPO. But the real winners may be the tech giants and chipmakers already being paid hundreds of billions to power its AI ambitions.

Anthropic's public listing has caught much attention, but for investors, the real wealth-generation story might not be about chasing big returns through Anthropic's initial public offering (IPO); it could be about buying into the biggest suppliers who have won lucrative contracts from the Claude maker.

Anthropic is preparing to list as soon as November 2026 in the US, at a valuation reportedly near US$2 trillion.

Australian investors can buy in, as the IPO includes a public offering in Australia which Anthropic outlined in its prospectus filing last month with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Yet some Australian institutional investors have expressed caution over the blockbuster listing and retail investors might take note.

Most recently John Pearce, chief investment officer of Australian pension fund UniSuper, said in a panel discussion at the CFA Australia Investment Conference that while Anthropic is "an incredible company," whether or not "that translates into a fantastic investment, that's another thing".

The float is reportedly targeted for mid-November. The valuation will reportedly sit between US$1.5 trillion and US$2 trillion on a capital raise of US$100 billion or more.

To put that into context, a raise of US$100 billion would be the largest IPO on record, ahead of SpaceX's US$75 billion in June.

Why some investors are wary of the Anthropic IPO

Rather than focus on Anthropic, which reported a headline net loss of US$80.7 billion in the first half of 2026 (almost all of it a non-cash accounting charge tied to its rising valuation) Australians could instead focus on six key companies that will benefit the most from Anthropic's IPO.

Anthropic has committed billions of dollars to source computing power and data storage on cloud providers, or hyperscalers.

The IPO filing shows that up to US$800 billion has been committed to computer chips, data centres and power supply, which highlights that its spending is feeding through the entire supply chain - and only a handful of companies will get the greatest benefits.

These companies are Google, Amazon, Broadcom, Nvidia, Microsoft and SpaceX.

To break down the numbers, Anthropic has outlined key cloud deals with Google (US$114.5 billion), Amazon Web Services (US$110 billion) and Microsoft (US$44.9 billion).

Under these contracts, Anthropic has agreed to pay the contracted amounts "regardless of actual usage".

Broadcom and Nvidia could be the biggest AI winners

Computer chip and digital infrastructure provider Broadcom is perhaps the biggest winner of all.

The company will receive around US$161 billion from Anthropic to supply dedicated computer chips under leases to Anthropic. Broadcom will supply Google-designed tensor processing units (TPUs) to Anthropic.

Separately, Anthropic will pay up to another US$120.5 billion to SpaceXAI for Nvidia GPU capacityin more billion-dollar computer chips contracts.

These hyperscalers and chip providers are in for a lot of money, and it is Anthropic that is paying them, not the other way around.

So much so that Michael Burry of the Big Short fame recently wrote that Anthropic is taking "the obsolescence risk" in its dealings with hyperscalers and Broadcom.

Anthropic must pay billions of dollars to these companies for computing power regardless of whether it needs all the cloud capacity and computer chips for which it is paying.

At the same time, its own AI software customers can switch providers at any time, and move over to ChatGPT, Gemini or any other number of LLMs that are available now or in the future.

So, will Anthropic IPO investors make any money or ride the swings that followed the SpaceX IPO? That's a big uncertainty, as IPOs always are.

Anthropic's prospectus highlights safety concerns

Indeed, Anthropic's prospectus warns potential investors that advanced AI could pose catastrophic risks if it is not developed with adequate safeguards.

"Concerns have been raised, both within our organisation and by external researchers and policymakers, that sufficiently advanced AI systems could, if not developed, deployed, and operated with adequate safeguards and oversight, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, particularly if such systems were misused, replicated, weaponised, or allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy," Anthropic said in its IPO documents.

Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei warned in September that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.

That warning combined with Anthropic's move to sell shares to the public, including Australians, are all part of the considerations that retail investors may need to note.

How Australians can invest in the AI boom without buying Anthropic

As for who profits, there is little uncertainty about the profitability of Broadcom, Nvidia and the hyperscalers - they are more profitable than ever, or close to it.

Regardless of the ultimate market valuation and returns on Anthropic's IPO, these companies are taking the cash either way.

Australians can invest in the very profitable semiconductors and hyperscalers through a diversified and low-cost ETF on the ASX without gambling on one big name.

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