{"text":[[{"start":11.1,"text":"Anthropic is weighing raising tens of billions of dollars this summer to fund a vast expansion in computing capacity, in a move that would catapult it past rival OpenAI to a valuation of almost $1tn."}],[{"start":24.35,"text":"The Claude maker, which was valued at $380bn in February, has been fielding interest from investors including Dragoneer, General Catalyst and Lightspeed Venture Partners as its revenue continues to rise, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. "}],[{"start":39.05,"text":"Those people expect Anthropic’s annualised revenue, which extrapolates full-year revenue based on recent weeks, to cross $45bn imminently — a fivefold increase from $9bn at the end of last year."}],[{"start":51.199999999999996,"text":"“People are ready to throw any dollar amount at Anthropic. It’s just about when [Anthropic] want to pop their heads up and say ‘we’re ready’,” said one investor in the company."}],[{"start":61.25,"text":"The new round is expected to value Anthropic at about $900bn pre-money and to raise as much as $50bn, said three of the people. They added it was likely to close within two months. OpenAI was valued at $852bn post-money in March after it closed a record funding round of $122bn. "}],[{"start":81.65,"text":"Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer, has been speaking with investors but has not yet agreed terms, and there is no guarantee that a deal will come together, they added. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"
"}],[{"start":93.10000000000001,"text":"Investors are keen to build positions ahead of a blockbuster initial public offering expected as soon as the end of this year, said multiple people with direct knowledge. Existing backers of the company have been requesting allocation in the round despite Rao not formally having kicked off talks. "}],[{"start":108.9,"text":"Given the expected scale of the deal and its aspirations to be a public company, Anthropic is likely to favour companies with public as well as private investment experience, several people said. "}],[{"start":120.4,"text":"The start-up’s Claude Code tool for software developers and Cowork product for less technical users have become hugely popular in recent months, helping Anthropic gain ground on OpenAI, especially for business clients."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":133.55,"text":"Anthropic is moving to build up a war chest to fund a massive increase in its computing capacity as it faces supply constraints that have impacted its ability to serve customers in recent weeks."}],[{"start":145.3,"text":"The need for computing capacity will increase with a wider release of Anthropic’s powerful new AI model, Mythos, which is currently available only to a small group of partners. "}],[{"start":156.60000000000002,"text":"The AI lab has struck deals with Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, Google, Broadcom and AWS in the past two months in an attempt to lock in a longer-term supply of computing power. Combined, those will add hundreds of billions of dollars to its costs in the coming years. "}],[{"start":173.40000000000003,"text":"“Anthropic has resolved the biggest bottleneck and potential source of weakness, which is compute,” said one investor in the company. "}],[{"start":181.25000000000003,"text":"Rao had held off entertaining offers at a higher valuation while working on those deals as well as a new partnership with private equity firms, which was announced on Monday, said multiple people familiar with the CFO’s thinking. "}],[{"start":194.10000000000002,"text":"OpenAI moved earlier to lock in data centre capacity, inking deals last autumn. The company will spend $50bn on computing resources this year, the company’s president Greg Brockman said during court proceedings brought by Tesla boss Elon Musk on Tuesday. "}],[{"start":211.35000000000002,"text":"Anthropic and Lightspeed declined to comment. General Catalyst and Dragoneer did not immediately respond."}],[{"start":218.3,"text":"Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in San Francisco. Data visualisation by Clara Murray"}],[{"start":232.35000000000002,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778223750_6776.mp3"}