Anthropic is expected to surpass SpaceX to the top of the IPO! But AI growth needs to be transformed into Microsoft-level profit margins

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Anthropic is expected to surpass SpaceX (SPCX.US) with the largest stock offering in history, but PitchBook analysts warned that the AI giant may need to reach the gross margin level of Microsoft (MSFT.US) of about 70% to support its huge promise of computing power.

To break SpaceX's IPO record, Anthropic's issuance valuation would need to exceed 1.8 trillion US dollars, and the financing scale would need to exceed SpaceX's 86 billion US dollars, including the Green Shoe mechanism, and not just match its private equity valuation of 965 billion US dollars.

Anthropic records AI industry's “unprecedented” profit milestone

PitchBook senior analyst Harrison Rolfes said that the positively adjusted operating profit of the Anthropic report was “unprecedented among AI companies.” Second-quarter revenue soared from $4.73 billion in the first quarter and $787 million in the same period last year to over $11.5 billion.

Anthropic's annualized revenue operating rate in July exceeded 65 billion US dollars, equivalent to 5.4 billion US dollars per month, seven times that of the same period last year. Rolfes said the figure is about one-third of Anthropic's projected revenue in 2028, indicating that the company may be moving forward as planned, although the operating rate does not guarantee future sales. Investors still lack audited GAAP profit, cash flow, gross margin, and customer concentration data, which is expected to be disclosed in Anthropic's S-1 prospectus.

Anthropic's $80 billion hashrate gamble

Meanwhile, Anthropic has reportedly committed $35 billion to Nvidia-invested Lambda for 350 megawatts of data center capacity in Texas developed by Hut 8 (HUT.US); previously, the company also reached another $45 billion West Virginia campus computing power agreement with Nscale.

Faced with these huge promises, Rolfes estimates Anthropic's gross margin of about 44%, far below the level of about 70% for Microsoft (MSFT.US) and ServiceNow (NOW.US). “This number seems realistic, but it's not enough to compete with SaaS companies. “It's also not appealing enough for open market investors because we know Anthropic has too many promises extending to 2030-32,” he said. “To support these promises, you need to raise gross margins to around 70%.”

Claude Code drives Anthropic's growth

“Claude Code is the biggest catalyst,” Rolfes said, pointing out that the coding tool had already surpassed the $2.5 billion annualized revenue operating rate in February. Corporate customers account for 80% of Anthropic's revenue, and as of April, more than 1,000 customers had annualized expenses of more than $1 million. Rolfes said Claude is entering a “production-level API workflow” and is no longer limited to “isolated experiments.”

However, it is currently unclear how much revenue is locked in the form of contracts. “It looks like it's repeatable, but it's not necessarily contractual,” he said, adding that investors needed more information on retention rates, contract duration, and committed usage.

Rolfes also anticipates that Anthropic will gradually move away from the subscription model and eventually switch to charging for completed tasks, making it easier for businesses to predict costs. “Anthropic needed to find a way to build a lasting revenue model that was easy to track,” he said.

Anthropic deepens corporate AI layout

Last week, Anthropic expanded its partnership with Salesforce (CRM) to launch Claudeforce — a Claude plug-in that provides 37 pre-built sales skills. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called it an “industry first” and said it represents “the way all future enterprise systems will operate.”

The company also removed the controversial 30-day data retention requirement (for commercial customers) after receiving “significant feedback.” The alternative “Enterprise Frontier Surveillance” will allow businesses to control how their data is reviewed, stored, and monitored without human review by Anthropic.

What do retail investors think of Anthropic and SpaceX? On the Stocktwits platform, retail sentiment about Anthropic was “bullish”, and the volume of news was “high”; while sentiment about SpaceX was “bearish,” the discussion was at an “extremely low” level.