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OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing AI valuations into territory previously occupied by only the world’s largest listed technology companies, while simultaneously revealing just how expensive the race to build frontier AI has become.
OpenAI and Anthropic Test Economics AI Race
OpenAI is reportedly seeking at least $30 billion from investors in a funding round that could value the ChatGPT developer at around $1.4 trillion before the new capital is included. The discussions remain preliminary and follow the company’s decision to postpone its anticipated stock market listing.
That figure would represent another remarkable step upwards. OpenAI completed a $122 billion funding round in March at an $852 billion post-money valuation, illustrating how quickly investor expectations around the commercial potential of generative AI continue to expand.
For the payments industry, that commercialisation is already visible. OpenAI has been steadily moving beyond subscriptions into transactional services, including testing payments directly through ChatGPT.
Anthropic Reveals the Cost Behind the Valuation
Anthropic offers perhaps the clearest indication yet of what sustaining that growth can cost.
The Claude developer’s IPO prospectus shows revenue of almost $4.6 billion in 2025, around 12 times the previous year’s level. Yet it also recorded $12.65 billion of operating expenditure and a $42 billion net loss, although roughly $34 billion reflected an accounting charge associated with financial instruments that could convert into equity, according to Reuters’ analysis of the prospectus.
More striking is the company’s future infrastructure bill. Anthropic has disclosed approximately $518 billion of commitments for cloud computing and other infrastructure as it attempts to secure enough processing capacity to train and operate increasingly sophisticated models.
Investors are nevertheless considering a valuation exceeding $2 trillion for its proposed IPO. Anthropic was valued at $965 billion following a $65 billion private funding round in May, when the company said its annualised revenue had exceeded $47 billion.
Anthropic is also pushing deeper into financial services. Claude is being incorporated into AI-powered commerce initiatives with Visa and Mastercard, while FIS is using its technology to develop AI agents designed to support anti-money-laundering investigations.
AI Valuations Meet Infrastructure Reality
The numbers underline the unusual economics of the current AI boom.
Demand is growing extraordinarily quickly, particularly among enterprise customers, while companies including OpenAI and Anthropic increasingly resemble infrastructure providers rather than conventional software businesses. Competitive advantage comes not only from better models, but from access to vast quantities of computing power, electricity, data centres and advanced chips.
That creates an uncomfortable tension for investors. Revenue growth can support exceptionally high valuations, but maintaining technological leadership requires equally exceptional capital expenditure.
The central question is therefore shifting. It is no longer simply whether artificial intelligence can generate enormous economic value, but how much of that value the companies building the underlying models can ultimately retain after paying for the infrastructure required to create it.
At trillion-dollar valuations, that distinction becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
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