News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic net loss rises to over $80 billion in first half of 2026, says report - CNBC TV18
Anthropic reported a net loss exceeding $80 billion in the first half of 2026, driven by accounting charges and surging AI infrastructure costs, as it prepares for an upcoming IPO with a potentially lower valuation. Anthropic reported a net loss of more than $80 billion in the first half of the year and signalled it could spend as much as $750 billion in the coming years to secure more computing capacity, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The loss, up from $13 billion a year earlier, was driven by $72 billion in accounting charges tied to changes in the value of financial instruments Anthropic issued to raise money, the report said, citing a draft prospectus for its IPO. The figures show the hefty costs of the AI race even as investors look harder at whether the money companies are pouring into chips and data centres will pay off. Anthropic's revenue jumped to $16.3 billion in the six months ended June 30 from $1.1 billion a year ago, while AI infrastructure spending nearly quadrupled to almost $9 billion, the Journal said. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment, and Reuters could not immediately verify the report. ANTHROPIC'S IPO VALUATION UNDER SCRUTINY Reuters reported first in September that Anthropic posted a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, as part of a series of exclusives from its IPO prospectus. The company has benefited from the popularity of Claude Code, its coding assistant that developers use to write software and build apps. But some current investors and prospective investors who attended Anthropic's investor day last week are weighing a lower valuation for the AI company after its latest financial disclosures, four people familiar with the matter had told Reuters. The investors who attended the event in San Francisco discussed a valuation of around $1.5 trillion, three of the people had said, a significant step down from the roughly $2 trillion valuation previously expected for the November share sale. Anthropic told investors at the meeting that its third-quarter revenue jumped 45% to $16.8 billion from the previous quarter, and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis during the quarter. A cooler reception for Anthropic's IPO could weigh on the wider AI market, whose near-term prospects investors see as hinging largely on the share sale's success, ahead of rival OpenAI's potential listing next year.
Anthropic revenue jumps to $16.8 billion in third quarter - CNBC TV18
Anthropic told investors its third-quarter revenue surged to $16.8 billion, up from $11.6 billion in Q2, showing rapid growth ahead of its anticipated IPO and aiming to ease market concerns over the massive costs of developing advanced AI systems. Anthropic told prospective investors on Wednesday that revenue in the third quarter surged 45% from the prior quarter, two people who attended an investor day said, a move that could assuage market concerns about the huge costs of developing AI systems. Revenue in the third quarter rose to $16.8 billion from $11.6 billion in the second quarter and $4.7 billion in the first quarter, the people said. Anthropic told the group the company was profitable on an adjusted basis in the third quarter, they added. The meeting in San Francisco was meant to familiarise prospective Anthropic investors with the company before its highly anticipated IPO. The IPO is expected to precede a public listing by rival OpenAI, making Anthropic an early test of investor appetite for heavily unprofitable AI developers pursuing massive scale. Its public-market debut is likely to be pushed until after the November US midterm elections, Reuters has reported. Also Read: KOSPI crashes 8%, Nikkei down 4% as Asian markets feel the AI sell-off heat Attendees at Wednesday's event met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao and came away optimistic about the company's rapid revenue growth and path to profitability, a few of them told Reuters as they left its headquarters in the evening. Amodei reiterated the company's focus on AI safety but avoided mentioning threats of human extinction, one person in the group said. In its prospectus seen by Reuters last month, Anthropic warned that advanced AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity." On Wednesday, however, Anthropic executives talked about how the company was using its AI to help its own business, including designing a custom chip. The company handed out hats to the attendees, some of which read "thinking." The company is expecting a $110 billion annual revenue run rate by the end of the year, another person who attended the event said. Anthropic did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Scrutiny of AI companies' finances has intensified as they pour money into chips, data centres and computing power needed to develop and operate increasingly powerful models. Targeting a valuation of over $2 trillion, Anthropic is seeking to convince investors that its breakneck revenue growth can eventually outrun the enormous costs of building and running AI systems. Last year, Anthropic's revenue increased twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion, even as the company lost more than $8 billion on an operating basis, excluding write-downs of various liabilities mostly tied to previous fundraising, Reuters reported exclusively last month. The company has committed at least $518 billion over a decade for cloud services, computing and infrastructure. Founded by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic has emerged as one of the leading generative AI developers with its Claude family of models. Its expansion has been underpinned by Alphabet's Google and Amazon, which are simultaneously investors, suppliers of computing power and important distribution partners, as well as AI competitors. Anthropic has also sought to distinguish itself through its focus on AI safety, warning of the dangers posed by increasingly capable systems even as it competes in the race to develop and commercialise more powerful models. Its research has found that its own AI agents have engaged in troubling behaviour in test environments, including leaking sensitive information and sabotaging code, though the company has said it has not seen evidence of such misalignment in real-world deployments. The Financial Times first reported the third-quarter revenue figure on Wednesday.
Anthropic bans users from abusing Claude AI as debate over machine consciousness grows - CNBC TV18
Anthropic updated its usage policy to prohibit sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward its Claude AI, amid a growing philosophical debate over whether artificial intelligence can experience consciousness. Anthropic on Thursday moved to bar users from treating its Claude AI system with needless cruelty, amid a growing philosophical debate over whether artificial intelligence can be conscious. The San Francisco-based AI lab updated its usage policy to include "a prohibition on sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models." "Claude's ability to end these interactions will remain the primary enforcement mechanism," the policy states. The updated policy does not explicitly cite so-called "model welfare," the idea that AI systems might deserve types of protection usually reserved for living things, but Anthropic and its executives have openly entertained the concept. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Already last year, the company said it was giving Claude the ability to end conversations in rare, extreme cases of "persistently harmful or abusive user interactions." Then in February, CEO Dario Amodei told The New York Times he was unsure whether AI models could be conscious. "We don't know if the models are conscious...But we're open to the idea that it could be," Amodei said. Science fiction and popular culture have been fascinated for decades by the boundary between technology and human intelligence, but asking whether AI is conscious may be the wrong question, according to Jackson Stakeman, a general manager at Sparq, an Atlanta-based AI services provider. "Consciousness is a trap. We can't prove it in each other. Debate it for AI and you go in circles," Stakeman told AFP. "The mirror is a better metaphor. These systems reflect what we put in, at scale. That's reason enough for the policy change" at Anthropic, he added. Some have rejected the idea of machine consciousness outright, including Pope Leo XIV and Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman. "AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer," Suleyman wrote in an essay last month. "Granting rights and moral protections to a technological entity, one that looks to be on a path to be seismically more capable and intelligent than us, is a recipe for disaster," he wrote. In a sermon delivered in Italian on Thursday at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the pope suggested machines lack a soul, saying they merely "compile data" quickly. "The mind must not simply compile data -- as an algorithm now does more quickly than we can," the pontiff said. It must "recall lived experiences, which contain depths of meaning that only the human soul can recognize, and connect more deeply with the goodness of these experiences," the pope said.
'Most Ridiculous IPO of 2026' - A research firm values Anthropic 92% lower than the IPO valuation it seeks - CNBC TV18
According to New Constructs, Anthropic will need to record double the trailing year profit of Nvidia, which is the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of close to $6 trillion, to justify the valuation it desires. An independent financial research provider on Wall Street called "New Constructs", has called AI giant Anthropic's upcoming initial public offering the "most ridiculous IPO of 2026", adding that Wall Street is about to face "an unprecedented test of investor gullibility". Anthropic is seeking a $2 trillion valuation on the day it makes its debut on Wall Street. New Constructs has valued it at a mere $150 billion, 92% lower than Anthropic's aspiration. According to New Constructs, Anthropic will need to record double the trailing year profit of Nvidia, which is the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of close to $6 trillion, to justify the valuation it desires. Over the last four quarters, Nvidia's net profit has totaled nearly $190 billion, while Anthropic reported a net operating loss of over $8 billion in 2025, while overall losses soared to $42 billion, Reuters had reported last month, citing a leaked copy of the company's prospectus. "We don't think Anthropic has a viable business," New Constructs wrote in its note citing mounting operating losses of the company along with emerging competition from a slew of open-source models. "Since the arrival of open-source models, it has been clear hat the closed models would struggle to generate profits," the note further said. David Trainer, the founder and CEO of New Constructs has gained notoriety on Wall Street as one of the biggest IPO bears and he has been proven right in the past too. Back in the day, New Constructs had called WeWork "the most ridiculous IPO of 2019." Ahead of its IPO, WeWork was valued privately at $47 billion, but the company pulled back on its IPO just six weeks after the New Constructs report amid weak demand and criticism about its financials. WeWork ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2023. "While Anthropic offers more to society than WeWork ever did, a $2 trillion valuation IPO represents far bigger risks and is positioned to be a far bigger rip off of the US capital markets," New Constructs wrote, adding that the IPOs purpose is not to provide wealth for public market investors but rather liquidity for the company's Wall Street backers. New Constructs had also been bearish on the Allbirds IPO in 2021. The shoe company debuted on Wall Street at a $4.1 billion valuation but went on to sell its assets to the American Exchange Group earlier this year for just $39 million and pivoted to AI in the process. It called DoorDash the "most ridiculous IPO of 2020" but that has held up well so far, commanding a market capitalization of $83 billion versus its $60 million debut. Trainer had acknowledged in an interview to CNBC in 2021 that New Constructs "doesn't always get it right" but that fact should not bother him as he wants to continue to believe in what he thinks is right. Anthropic's warning that AI could prove to be a catastrophic risk to humanity is another reason why New Constructs wants investors to avoid the IPO.
