Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic reported third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion (22.64 trillion won), up 45% from the previous quarter, and turned profitable for the first time.

Reuters and Bloomberg reported on Oct. 14, citing an investor who attended Anthropic’s private Investor Day event. Anthropic disclosed its financial statements to prospective investors on Oct. 14 ahead of its planned initial public offering (IPO).

According to the reports, Anthropic’s revenue rose from $4.7 billion in the first quarter to $11.6 billion in the second and $16.8 billion in the third. The company also turned profitable on an adjusted basis in the third quarter.

Anthropic is reportedly targeting an IPO after the U.S. midterm elections in November, seeking a valuation of $2 trillion. The listing will test investor appetite for AI startups that have expanded aggressively while absorbing substantial losses. Rising capital expenditure has also fueled concerns about the financial health of AI companies.

Anthropic is focusing on convincing investors that its explosive revenue growth justifies increasing capital expenditure, Reuters reported. The news agency previously reported that Anthropic generated about $4.6 billion in revenue in 2025, a twelvefold increase from the previous year, while posting an operating loss exceeding $8 billion.

Annualizing Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion yields an annual run rate of about $67.2 billion (90.6 trillion won). Its targeted $2 trillion valuation would therefore represent a revenue multiple of nearly 30 times. That is substantially higher than the price-to-sales (P/S) ratios of 8 to 12 times typically seen at established technology companies such as Microsoft and Apple.

Factors supporting the possibility that investors will accept the valuation include explosive quarterly revenue growth of 40% to 50%, suggesting strong future revenue potential; the shift to profitability, demonstrating a viable earnings model capable of offsetting operating losses from massive AI infrastructure investments; and Anthropic’s distinctive position in the enterprise AI market.

Risks include enormous long-term spending commitments, uncertainty over the sustainability of profitability and intensifying competition. Anthropic has committed to spending at least $5.18 trillion (about 700 trillion won) on cloud and infrastructure costs over 10 years. Although the company turned profitable on an adjusted basis in the third quarter, another surge in training costs for next-generation AI models could undermine profitability.

Anthropic’s AI models currently rank first in performance, but Meta, Google and SpaceX have recently made significant advances. As a result, the AI market is shifting from a two-way rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI toward competition among multiple companies.