Anthropic in talks with Nvidia for $2 trillion IPO

The current state of the deal

Anthropic is in talks to bring Nvidia into its planned initial public offering as an anchor investor, according to Reuters reporting cited by MarketScreener on September 12, 2026 [1]. The proposed transaction is extraordinary in scale: Anthropic is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion in an IPO that could value the company at roughly $2 trillion, while Nvidia is considering investing up to $10 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions [1]. The talks remain confidential, the plans could change, and neither side has publicly confirmed a binding commitment; Anthropic declined to comment, while Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment [1].

That last caveat matters. The story is not that a $2 trillion IPO has been priced, allocated or approved. The story is that Anthropic is reportedly trying to secure Nvidia as an early institutional buyer for what could become the largest public offering ever attempted, and that the chipmaker’s possible role would carry strategic significance beyond the size of the check [1]. As of the latest reporting in the 72-hour window ending September 13, 2026, the public facts are still limited to talks, a possible $10 billion Nvidia commitment, an IPO target of up to $100 billion, and an implied valuation near $2 trillion [1].

Anchor investors usually commit to purchase a portion of an IPO before the broader marketing process begins, giving other buyers a signal that sophisticated capital has already underwritten part of the offer [1]. In ordinary mega-listings, that can help stabilize demand. In Anthropic’s case, the signal is more complicated because Nvidia is not just another financial institution: it is a key supplier to frontier AI labs whose models require enormous amounts of accelerated computing [1].

Why Nvidia’s role is more than symbolic

If Nvidia anchors Anthropic’s IPO, it would be validating a customer whose demand is tied directly to Nvidia’s own data-center business. Reuters’ account says Anthropic relies heavily on Nvidia GPUs, even as it is also trying to diversify its chip supply as Claude demand strains available computing capacity [1]. That duality is central to the market debate: Nvidia may be both a beneficiary of Anthropic’s spending and a buyer of Anthropic’s equity.

TECHi framed the issue sharply, noting that the investor being asked to validate the valuation is also the supplier being paid for the compute that supports the business [2]. The same report summarized the unresolved status of the transaction: Anthropic is in talks, Nvidia is weighing up to $10 billion, the offering could raise as much as $100 billion, and the structure has not been confirmed [2]. That is why the word “anchor” is important. Nvidia would not merely be joining a private round; it would be helping public-market investors interpret one of the most ambitious IPO valuations in technology history.

The strategic relationship between the two companies was already deep before this latest report. Reuters said Nvidia announced in November 2025 that it would invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic as part of a broader partnership under which Anthropic committed to buy $30 billion of Microsoft Azure computing capacity powered by Nvidia chips [1]. The potential IPO investment would therefore extend an existing pattern: Anthropic needs compute, Nvidia supplies compute, and Nvidia may also own more of the company whose compute demand helps justify the AI infrastructure cycle [1].

The scale of the proposed IPO

The numbers are large enough to distort normal IPO comparisons. A $100 billion raise would equal nearly three quarters of the $137 billion raised by all U.S. IPOs, excluding SPACs, through the end of August 2026, according to Dealogic figures cited by Reuters [1]. That makes the offering less like a standard growth-company debut and more like a market-wide liquidity event.

The proposed valuation is just as consequential. A $2 trillion market value would place Anthropic in the territory normally reserved for the world’s largest public companies, not a still-private AI lab preparing its first public filing. TECHi calculated that such a valuation would be about 31 times Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate as of the end of July, while also noting that the valuation case depends partly on company projections of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue in 2028 [2]. Those projections may prove plausible, aggressive or incomplete once investors can inspect a public prospectus; for now, they remain part of the private-marketing narrative rather than audited public disclosure [2].

The Next Web compared the possible Nvidia check with the European AI funding landscape, pointing out that Nvidia’s possible $10 billion investment would be larger than Mistral’s €3 billion round, described as the largest ever raised by a European technology company [3]. TNW also reported that Anthropic’s IPO target would exceed SpaceX’s June listing, which raised $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation [3]. Whether those comparisons are exact or imperfect, they illustrate the same point: Anthropic’s listing would not merely be large for AI; it would be one of the defining capital-market events of the decade.

What investors will want to see

The next decisive document is not a press leak but the public IPO prospectus. Until that appears, outside investors cannot fully assess Anthropic’s revenue mix, gross margins, compute obligations, customer concentration, capital expenditure needs, related-party exposure or long-term path to cash generation. TECHi noted that no public prospectus exists yet and that neither company has confirmed the figures, date or structure [2].

For public investors, the central question is not simply whether Claude is popular or whether Anthropic is growing quickly. It is whether the business can convert compute-intensive demand into durable, high-margin revenue at a scale that supports a $2 trillion valuation. Reuters reported that Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate had climbed above $65 billion by the end of July, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, according to the company [1]. That pace is extraordinary, but the IPO valuation would require investors to believe that growth remains strong while costs, infrastructure commitments and competitive pressure become more transparent.

Another issue is the quality of the demand signal. If a supplier such as Nvidia invests in a customer such as Anthropic, the market may ask how much of the growth story reflects independent end-user demand and how much reflects an ecosystem in which suppliers, cloud partners and model developers reinforce one another financially. Cointelegraph’s September 12 summary captured the core of the Reuters report: the talks are ongoing, the investment could strengthen ties between Nvidia and a major customer, and the companies have not confirmed the arrangement [4].

None of this means the structure is improper. Strategic investors often back customers, suppliers and platform partners. But in an IPO of this size, the identity of the buyer matters because an anchor commitment is supposed to help establish confidence in the price. A $10 billion commitment from a neutral pension fund would send one type of signal; a $10 billion commitment from a compute supplier sends another.

The broader AI valuation test

Anthropic’s IPO would test whether public markets are ready to absorb private-market AI valuations at unprecedented scale. The company has major strategic relationships across the AI infrastructure stack: Reuters reported that Amazon and Google are also among Anthropic’s largest backers and major compute suppliers, and that Anthropic has committed more than $100 billion over a decade to AWS while using more than one million Amazon Trainium2 chips [1]. Reuters also reported that Anthropic has agreed with Google and Broadcom to add multiple gigawatts of TPU capacity [1].

This makes Anthropic a useful lens on the entire AI economy. Frontier labs require vast compute. Compute requires chips, cloud contracts, power, data centers and financing. The biggest suppliers then have incentives to support the customers whose demand underpins infrastructure spending. The possible Nvidia anchor investment therefore raises a question that goes beyond Anthropic: how should public markets value AI companies when their growth, funding and supply chains are so tightly interlocked?

The bullish answer is straightforward. If Anthropic’s revenue run rate has indeed moved from about $9 billion at the end of 2025 to above $65 billion by late July 2026, the company may be demonstrating one of the fastest enterprise-technology adoption curves ever reported [1]. In that scenario, Nvidia’s participation could be read as a knowledgeable industry leader securing exposure to a strategic customer before a generational listing.

The cautious answer is equally clear. If public investors are being asked to value Anthropic near $2 trillion before seeing a public prospectus, they may demand unusually detailed disclosure around revenue quality, compute costs, cloud commitments, related-party arrangements and the assumptions behind 2028 revenue projections [2]. The market may accept the growth story, but it is unlikely to ignore the circularity risk simply because the investor is Nvidia.

What happens next

The immediate watch points are narrow. First, whether Nvidia’s possible investment becomes a signed anchor commitment. Second, whether other strategic or institutional investors join the anchor book. Third, whether Anthropic releases a public prospectus that supports the reported valuation range. Fourth, whether the final IPO target remains near $100 billion and $2 trillion or is revised after investor feedback.

Reuters reported that the listing is expected to complete before the U.S. midterm elections in November 2026 [1]. If that timetable holds, Anthropic has little time to convert confidential talks into a marketable transaction. The company needs a book of buyers large enough to absorb an offering that would rival the total proceeds of entire IPO markets, while Nvidia must decide whether anchoring the deal helps secure strategic influence or exposes it to criticism that the AI boom is becoming too financially circular.

For now, the headline is accurate but not final: Anthropic is in talks with Nvidia for a potential $2 trillion IPO. The decisive question is whether those talks turn into a confirmed anchor order — and whether public investors decide that Nvidia’s presence validates the price or complicates it.

Developments

1. Anthropic anticipates second profitable quarter ahead of $2T Nasdaq IPOCrypto Briefing · Sep 14, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC · 7/10
2. Anthropic plans NASDAQ IPO with $2 trillion valuationCrypto Briefing · Sep 13, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC · 8/10

Sources from the last 72 hours

1. [1]Nvidia in talks to invest in Anthropic's mega IPO, sources saySep 11, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC
2. [2]Nvidia in talks to anchor Anthropic IPO at $2 trillion valuation: ReutersSep 12, 2026, 12:22 AM UTC
3. [3]Nvidia may put $10bn into Anthropic’s IPO, more than Europe’s largest AI round in fullSep 12, 2026, 11:12 AM UTC
4. [4]Nvidia considers $10B investment in potential record Anthropic IPO: ReutersSep 12, 2026, 12:00 AM UTC

AI-generated article based on recent web research, then preserved as a dated editorial snapshot.