Anthropic is about to launch its highly anticipated IPO, arriving just one week after the industry lost one of its most influential and commercially savvy lobbyists amid a sudden change in circumstances.
NVIDIA's long-serving CEO and co-founder, Jensen Huang, stepped down on Thursday following reports that he was involved in two extramarital affairs. The timing adds fresh pressure to Anthropic's listing.
This IPO was already viewed as a stress test of investor appetite for the AI sector. The AI lab is expected to debut next Wednesday or Thursday, just days before NVIDIA (NVDA) reports earnings — the chipmaker's first quarterly disclosure without Huang at the helm.
NVIDIA (NVDA) is a close partner of Anthropic and is deeply involved in this IPO. According to Anthropic's filing, the chipmaker agreed to subscribe for roughly $10 billion of shares in a $26 billion private placement running alongside the listing.
The two companies are tightly bound commercially, with Anthropic committing tens of billions of dollars to secure access to NVIDIA (NVDA)'s most advanced chips.
Investors and analysts say that while the NVIDIA (NVDA) turmoil is unlikely to hit Anthropic's core business, it will affect the broader market narrative around the AI sector.
Jay Goldberg, an analyst at Westport Research Partners and one of the few on Wall Street with a sell rating on NVIDIA (NVDA), believes Huang's departure will not halt the IPO. "They'll go public under the pressure of NVIDIA (NVDA)'s earnings call, and I don't think it will be shelved because of this. This is a massive IPO with many backers, and it won't be stopped." He said the bigger risk lies after Anthropic's listing.
Before Huang's exit was officially announced but after news of his departure emerged, Goldberg warned that instability at NVIDIA (NVDA), especially a CEO departure, would create headwinds when Anthropic reports its first quarterly results. "At the very least, the market will start asking: Can the AI rally continue? Can we keep betting on it? They will face sharper scrutiny."
Karl Almar, a partner at venture firm M13, also believes Anthropic's fundamentals are unchanged. "In my view, Anthropic's position remains solid after the news. The company's data is strong, its compute reserves are ample, and its cash burn is manageable."
Anthropic is less dependent on NVIDIA (NVDA) than many peers. Beyond NVIDIA (NVDA) hardware, some of its models also run on Google TPUs, Amazon Trainium chips, and AMD graphics cards. There are also reports that Anthropic is developing its own chips.
Francine McKenna, an accountant who teaches at Wharton and is an investigative journalist, said: "NVIDIA (NVDA) has committed $10 billion to Anthropic's IPO, and that investment will most likely go through. But investors who were counting on NVIDIA (NVDA) to backstop CoreWeave if needed may have to look elsewhere."
Jason Schloetzer, an associate professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, argued that NVIDIA (NVDA)'s recent turmoil and questions about its CEO's judgment will spill over to its partners and bring more scrutiny. He expects the market to examine Anthropic's ties to NVIDIA (NVDA) more closely, as well as customers connected to NVIDIA (NVDA).
In Silicon Valley, Anthropic and rival OpenAI have enormous funding needs, and nearly every local venture firm holds stakes, making them akin to index plays in the private market. As a result, Anthropic's IPO next week is a high-stakes liquidity event: it concerns not only more than 400 investors but also the direction of this AI boom.
The market widely believes that if Anthropic lists successfully, the AI rally still has plenty of room; if the listing is cold or indefinitely postponed, it would be a clear bearish signal that the AI bubble is nearing a bursting point.
Still, this IPO may not fail. At least one venture investor sees an "upside" for Anthropic. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's long-standing stance differs from Huang's, and the two also disagree on AI regulation.
The investor, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation and holdings in multiple AI companies, said: "In a sense, Anthropic actually benefits. They were never especially close to Huang. The company is developing its own chips, and the space opened up in the supply chain works in its favor."
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