Prediction markets assign just a 17% probability of bankruptcy to Anthropic, reflecting the market's complex judgment on the viability of AI model companies operating under a high-capex model.
According to the latest data from prediction market platform Polymarket, the probability that Anthropic will declare bankruptcy before the end of 2028 is only 17%. This pricing stands in sharp tension with the IPO draft the company revealed this week鈥攖he prospectus draft shows that Anthropic's net loss in the first half of 2026 exceeded $80.7 billion, and its committed spending on computing infrastructure could reach as high as $750 billion.
According to a report citing Anthropic's latest S-1 IPO draft, of the $80.7 billion net loss, approximately $72 billion consists of non-cash accounting adjustments, while the actual operating loss was about $8.7 billion鈥攁 figure that already exceeds the company's full-year 2025 operating loss of more than $8 billion. At the same time, the company generated $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, with third-quarter revenue rising 45% quarter-over-quarter to $16.8 billion, showing some commercial momentum.
However, the slowdown in revenue growth has already triggered valuation disagreements among potential IPO buyers. Management disclosed at an investor day that quarter-over-quarter revenue growth decelerated sharply from about 140% between the first and second quarters to 45% to 46% in the third quarter, prompting some institutional investors to lower their reference valuation range from $2 trillion to about $1.5 trillion. Polymarket's 17% bankruptcy probability pricing is essentially the market betting that Anthropic's revenue growth trajectory will be sufficient to achieve profitability at scale before its funds run out鈥攂ut the preconditions for that bet are becoming increasingly demanding.
Hidden concerns behind revenue growth: concentration risk and slowing momentum
The core logic behind the market assigning Anthropic a relatively low bankruptcy probability lies in its rapid revenue growth. But that growth itself contains structural vulnerabilities.
The prospectus shows that of the $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, about 20%, or roughly $3.26 billion, came from just two customers. The company also warned investors that revenue will remain highly concentrated among a "limited number of customers" for the "foreseeable future," and that many large enterprise customers have not signed long-term contracts and could theoretically switch suppliers at any time.
At the same time, the slowdown in revenue growth has triggered repricing by institutional investors. Management disclosed at an investor day that quarter-over-quarter growth slowed sharply from about 140% between the first and second quarters to 45% to 46% in the third quarter. Although a 45% sequential quarterly growth rate is still strong in absolute terms, the gap versus earlier growth was enough to prompt some institutions to cut their reference valuation range from $2 trillion to about $1.5 trillion.
Anthropic said it achieved adjusted positive profit in the second quarter of 2026, but before fully audited financial data is released, the exact definition of "adjusted" profit still needs to be clarified.
The logic behind the 17% pricing: what the market is betting on
Polymarket's 17% bankruptcy probability pricing essentially reflects a probability-weighted market judgment on one core question: whether Anthropic's revenue growth trajectory can cover its fixed computing liabilities before the end of 2028 while maintaining sufficient financing capacity to bridge its operating shortfall.
Arguments supporting the low bankruptcy probability include: revenue growth remains at a high level; strategic investors such as Alphabet (GOOG) and Amazon have strong incentives to keep the company operating; the IPO itself will provide a new channel for capital replenishment; and the vast majority of the $80.7 billion net loss consists of non-cash items, posing no immediate cash pressure.
But the risk implied by this pricing is that it may underestimate the liquidity pressure from fixed computing liabilities in a scenario of persistently slowing revenue growth, as well as the revenue fragility caused by high customer concentration. The sustainability of the high-capex model among AI model companies ultimately depends on an assumption that has not yet been fully validated by historical data: that computing investment can be converted quickly enough into defensible, long-term locked-in revenue.
Anthropic's IPO will be the first real stress test of that assumption in the public markets.
Astronomical losses: the two-layer structure of the $80.7 billion figure
Anthropic's $80.7 billion half-year net loss is composed, at the accounting level, of two parts that are entirely different in nature.
About $72 billion of it consists of non-cash accounting adjustments. As the company's private valuation continued to climb across successive financing rounds, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) required the fair value of convertible notes and other complex financing instruments issued to early investors to be marked up accordingly, creating a large-scale "paper loss" on the books. This accounting treatment is not uncommon among fast-financing technology startups, but the absolute scale of $80.7 billion is still rare.
Stripping out that accounting adjustment, the company's actual operating loss in the first half still reached about $8.7 billion, already exceeding its full-year 2025 operating loss of more than $8 billion. The core driver is the explosive growth in computing spending: in the first half of 2026, Anthropic's direct spending on computing resources and infrastructure approached $9 billion, nearly four times the $2.3 billion in the first half of 2025, and even exceeding its full-year 2025 total computing spending of $7.3 billion.
This means that before paying any researchers, management, or sales staff, more than 55 cents of every dollar of revenue already flows to data center operators and chip suppliers. This cost structure is the key starting point for understanding Polymarket's pricing logic.
The $750 billion compute bill: from flexible spending to irrevocable liabilities
The real risk in Anthropic's computing investment is not the scale itself, but the fact that its contract structure has evolved from a flexible pay-as-you-go model into fixed, irrevocable long-term liabilities.
According to a report, the company's locked-in computing infrastructure spending commitments have exceeded $600 billion, and if an additional $150 billion agreement under negotiation is finalized, the total will reach $750 billion. According to the latest prospectus draft, the company must bear about $450 billion in cloud computing contractual obligations over the next seven to ten years, and the vast majority of the agreements explicitly state that payment is required "regardless of actual usage."
Major contract terms include: an $111 billion contract with Google Cloud; an $110 billion contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS); a $31 billion contract with Microsoft; and chip leasing agreements with AI cloud service providers Nscale and Lambda totaling up to $86 billion, with lease terms extending to 2033 to 2034. In addition, through a separate arrangement with Broadcom, the company has taken on more than $160 billion in Google TPU chip leasing obligations.
The prospectus also discloses a supply-side dilemma: Anthropic has sought more computing capacity than AWS, Google, and Microsoft are willing to provide, partly because the three hyperscale cloud providers increasingly view it as a direct competitor. Forced to turn to alternative suppliers, the company began building its own data centers and partnering with third-party facility operators, and the prospectus admits that these operators have a "limited operating history" and that their reliability is uncertain. The prospectus also mentions that some computing arrangements are financed off-balance-sheet through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and private credit instruments, further adding uncertainty around financial transparency.
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