Amazon and Google could make some of the largest gains from Anthropic’s planned stock market debut, with their investments in the artificial intelligence company potentially becoming worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Anthropic is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) expected to rank among the biggest in history. If the company achieves a valuation of up to $1.4 trillion, Amazon’s investment of $18 billion could rise in value to more than $250 billion, while Google’s $33 billion stake could be worth around $140 billion.
The two technology giants are Anthropic’s largest outside shareholders and together own more than a quarter of its shares. The potential returns highlight how established technology companies have benefited from the rapid expansion of the AI industry, even as younger businesses lead much of the development.
Gil Luria, a technology analyst at investment bank D.A. Davidson, estimated that Anthropic’s relationships with Amazon and Google had contributed more than $1 trillion in market capitalisation to each company. The gains reflect not only their shareholdings but also revenue from cloud computing services, advanced chips and the sale of AI products to customers.
Anthropic, founded in 2021, required substantial funding to develop its technology and secure the computing capacity needed to compete with OpenAI. Only a small number of companies had the financial resources to provide such large investments.
The opportunity emerged as the AI race accelerated following the launch of ChatGPT. Early Anthropic backers included Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. However, the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s business empire created uncertainty around the startup’s future.
Amazon initially supported OpenAI when it was established as a non-profit in 2015 but later declined to become its major commercial partner. Microsoft instead invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, prompting other technology companies to seek relationships with emerging AI developers.
Google invested in Anthropic in 2023, with the startup agreeing to use Google’s in-house chips. Amazon followed with an initial $1.25 billion investment in September that year and became Anthropic’s primary cloud computing provider.
The partnership gave Amazon a major customer for its cloud services and an opportunity to improve its own AI chips, which compete with products from Nvidia. Amazon has since expanded its investment and is building a large data centre to meet Anthropic’s computing requirements.
Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff has also said his company invested in Anthropic after its relationship with OpenAI’s Microsoft partner made a direct investment difficult. He suggested the stake could eventually generate billions of dollars in returns.
Despite the expected IPO, major investors are unlikely to sell their holdings quickly because access to Anthropic’s technology and computing requirements remains strategically important.
However, analysts warn that the scale of potential returns depends on whether demand for AI products can justify the industry’s enormous spending. Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University, described the investments as a risky bet, noting that companies are committing huge resources without knowing how large the eventual market will become.
