AI giant Anthropic plans to sell shares in US as valuation nears $1tn

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic has revealed its plans to go public in the US, a move which would allow people to buy and sell its shares on the stock market.

The company behind chatbot Claude said on Monday it had filed paperwork with the US authorities in order to make an initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Anthropic said the price and number of shares to be offered "have not yet been set".

The firm's stock market plans, coming alongside those of Elon Musk's SpaceX, is set to show whether investor appetite matches the soaring valuations of AI companies.

Anthropic, founded just five years ago, recently raised money from private investors that valued the company at more than $965bn (£717bn), ahead of OpenAI's most recent valuation of $852bn.

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei created the firm after leaving OpenAI, where he had worked for several years, over disagreements with its chief executive Sam Altman.

The two firms have since become fierce rivals in the AI world, developing similar technology and fighting for the attention and spending of users and corporate customers.

Altman told CNBC on Monday that, while his company did intend to go public, it was in no rush to do so.

Should OpenAI's listing happen, the US capital markets are poised to see an historic level of investment in just a handful of companies.

SpaceX alone is expected to break stock market records with its target valuation, but the potential value of Anthropic and OpenAI are not far behind.

Meanwhile, Google's owner Alphabet has revealed plans to raise $80bn to spend on AI.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the announcement was "a clear sign that the AI arms race is moving into a more capital-hungry phase".