A $10bn Nvidia anchor would fill a tenth of Anthropic's book before demand is tested
Anthropic is looking for as much as $100bn at a valuation near $2 trillion, and sources cited by Reuters say Nvidia, one of the suppliers it buys compute from, is weighing up to $10bn of that offering. The talks are private and the terms can change.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Sources told Reuters that Nvidia is weighing up to $10 billion in Anthropic's planned IPO as the anchor investor, a role for the chipmaker that had not been reported before.
- Anthropic is trying to raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation close to $2 trillion, in what the sources said could become the biggest IPO ever.
- Nvidia had already said in November 2025 that it planned to invest as much as $10 billion in Anthropic through a wider partnership tied to the company's compute purchases.
- Anthropic trains and runs its models on large numbers of Nvidia GPUs and is working to use more than one chip supplier because demand for Claude has pushed its available capacity hard.
- Amazon and Google are already both Anthropic investors and major providers of the computing capacity it buys.
Why it matters
- Who's exposed exposure Nvidia would sit on both sides of the same demand: revenue from Anthropic's hardware purchases and equity in the buyer making them.
- Who has to decide decision At about 8% of Anthropic's disclosed AWS and Azure commitments, the cheque changes who funds the compute bill.
- What it sets up precedent If a chip supplier can anchor a customer's listing at this size, the next frontier-AI offering will be marketed with a strategic buyer pre-committed as standard.
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An anchor allocation is a fixed slice of an offering, bought before the book is marketed to anyone else [7]. Up to $10bn into a raise of up to $100bn is a tenth of that book [19], and at a valuation near $2 trillion the same $10bn buys half a percent of the equity [20]. According to cryptopolitan's account of the Reuters reporting, Nvidia would enter not only as a financier but as a supplier to one of its major customers [5].
The November commitment and the IPO cheque may be the same money. Nvidia's IPO investment could be that partnership money routed into an offering, or a fresh $10bn on top of it. The difference is $10bn.
Anthropic owes its suppliers much more than either figure. In April it said it planned to spend more than $100bn with Amazon Web Services over ten years and to use more than 1 million Trainium2 chips [11], and it has agreements with Google and Broadcom for several gigawatts of TPU capacity [12]. Set $10bn against the $30bn Azure commitment plus the $100bn AWS plan and it covers about 8% of $130bn [21]. Anthropic is also building an internal chip team working on custom hardware for Claude, to get more control over computing costs [17].
The multiple depends on which revenue figure you divide by. Cryptopolitan reports an annualized run rate above $65bn by July against $9bn in December, a factor of about seven in seven months [14][26]. Against that run rate, $2 trillion is roughly 31 times revenue [22]. Against the $190bn to $200bn for 2028 that Reuters earlier reported Anthropic projects, the midpoint is closer to 10 times [16][23], and part of the $2 trillion figure rests on those projections [15]. The May round priced the company at $965bn post-money [13], so the IPO talk is about 2.1 times a valuation set a few months ago [24].
I think a pre-committed anchor makes the eventual print less informative than its size suggests, and there are two ways that view fails. An anchor buys at whatever price the book produces, so it takes size off the book at a level someone else sets. And half a percent of a customer is small enough to look like ordinary strategic money from a firm that did the same for Arm. The more interesting version is the denominator: $100bn is about 73% of the $137bn that US listings excluding SPACs raised through the end of August, on Dealogic's count [18][25].
Either a raise that prices well under $100bn or a book that fills without an anchor at all would break the thesis. The listing is forecast before the November midterm elections [27].
What to watch
- Whether the eventual filing shows the November 2025 $10bn and the IPO $10bn as one commitment or two.
Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.
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- [1]
Nvidia is weighing an investment of up to $10 billion in Anthropic's planned IPO as the AI company looks for an anchor investor before going public; sources told Reuters the deal could be part of what may become the biggest IPO ever, and Nvidia's role had not been reported before.
- [2]
The talks are still private and the terms can change; the sources asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.
- [3]
Anthropic is trying to raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation close to $2 trillion.
- [4]
Anthropic uses large numbers of Nvidia GPUs to train and run its models, and is trying to use more than one chip supplier because demand for Claude has pushed its available computing capacity hard.
- [5]
Nvidia would enter not just as a financier, but as a supplier to one of its major customers.
- [6]
Amazon and Google, owned by Alphabet, are also Anthropic investors and major compute providers.
- [7]
Anchor investors normally agree to buy a fixed part of an IPO before wider demand is tested, a model now common in very large listings.
- [8]
Arm Holdings used Nvidia and Amazon as anchor investors when it went public, and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund took an anchor position in SpaceX.
- [9]
Nvidia already said in November 2025 that it planned to invest as much as $10 billion in Anthropic through a wider partnership.
- [10]
Under the November 2025 arrangement, Anthropic agreed to spend $30 billion on Microsoft Azure computing capacity powered by Nvidia hardware.
- [11]
In April, Anthropic said it planned to spend more than $100 billion with Amazon Web Services over ten years and use more than 1 million Amazon Trainium2 chips.
- [12]
Anthropic has agreements with Google and Broadcom to add several gigawatts of TPU capacity.
- [13]
Anthropic raised $65 billion in May while valuing itself at $965 billion post-money.
- [14]
By July, Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate exceeded $65 billion; the figure for December was $9 billion.
- [15]
Part of the $2 trillion prediction is based on Anthropic's own projections.
- [16]
Reuters reported that Anthropic projects revenues ranging between $190 billion and $200 billion by 2028.
- [17]
Anthropic is building an internal chip team working on custom hardware for Claude as the company looks for more control over computing costs.
- [18]
US IPOs excluding special-purpose acquisition companies had raised a record $137 billion through the end of August, according to Dealogic.
- [19]
Up to $10bn of an offering of up to $100bn is 10% of the book.
- [20]
$10bn at a $2 trillion valuation is 0.5% of the company.
- [21]
The $30bn Azure commitment plus the $100bn AWS plan is $130bn, and $10bn is about 7.7% of that.
- [22]
A $2 trillion valuation against a $65bn annualized run rate is about 31 times revenue.
- [23]
A $2 trillion valuation against the $195bn midpoint of the 2028 projection is about 10.3 times revenue.
- [24]
A $2 trillion valuation is about 2.1 times the $965bn post-money valuation set in May.
- [25]
A $100bn raise would equal about 73% of the $137bn US IPOs excluding SPACs raised through the end of August.
- [26]
A run rate rising from $9bn in December to more than $65bn in July is a factor of about 7.2 over seven months.
- [27]
The IPO is forecast to take place prior to the American midterm elections in November.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cointelegraph.comNvidia considers $10B investment in potential record Anthropic IPO: Reuters
2 articles · September 12, 2026
- cryptopolitan.comNvidia may put $10B behind Anthropic before it goes public
1 article · September 11, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Initial public offerings
- AI Compute Supply and Scarcity
- Anchor investors