Anthropic’s S-1 embodies all the contradictions of the AI boom, and the questions about what happens next

Anthropic’s S-1 is a Rorschach test, perhaps. 

The anxiously awaited go-public filing from the $965 billion company is filled with contradictions that, perhaps, wholly encapsulate the AI era. It starts with rhetoric: That AI, “one of the most consequential technologies in human history,” will commence an “age of miracles,” while simultaneously rife with “existential risks to society.” AI, Anthropic says in its S-1, can do everything from shortening DMV lines to potentially curing cancer—and “may pose catastrophic [risks].” 

The contradictions, of course, filter through to the numbers, including the headline revenue figure for the first half of 2026: $16.29 billion in revenue (reflective of sweeping demand for Claude), posed right next to Anthropic’s net loss of $80.7 billion for the six months leading up to June 2026. Anthropic could be the largest IPO ever—with one of the largest net losses ever recorded by a public or soon-to-be-public company. That mammoth chunk of red ink is due to an accounting charge related to convertible notes, but the company’s losing money nonetheless.

Reading this S-1, it’s clear: This is a cost-of-compute story. And how could it be anything else? The massive costs and demands for compute are woven throughout (the word “compute” appears more than 580 times in the document) and embody their own dichotomies. For one, Anthropic and Elon Musk may have their highly-public squabbles, but that isn’t........

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