"Take it when you can": Anthropic, Meta and Microsoft scramble for cash to pay for the AI boom

Some of the biggest names in technology went looking for money on the same day this week, showing how large the bills for artificial intelligence (AI) have become.

On Monday 26 October, Anthropic filed to list its shares, Meta announced plans to raise up to $95bn in new stock, and Microsoft offered buyouts to about 60,000 staff.

Anthropic’s IPO is only starting

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering (IPO), it said. It intends to list on Nasdaq under the symbol “ANT”. The number of shares and the price range “have not yet been determined”, the company said, and the statement is not yet effective, so no shares can be sold.

The Washington Post describes it as “expected to be the largest initial public offering in history”, with an estimated $100bn in stock sales. That figure is the Post’s estimate, not a number Anthropic has given. The Post says Anthropic’s paperwork warned the sale would be only a down payment: “We anticipate making significant and increased investments for the foreseeable future.”

Meta’s $95bn share sale

Meta said it would initially raise $35bn through underwritten public stock offerings, then a further $60bn through an at-the-market programme, in which shares are sold gradually, CNBC reports. Meta said Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom had expressed interest in buying up to $5bn of shares.

On Tuesday, Nvidia said it would invest $3bn in Meta’s equity offering, as part of a wider agreement on Meta’s Muse AI agents and Nvidia’s chips. CNBC reports AMD said it would invest $1bn.

In a securities filing, Meta said that capital raises by Alphabet, SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI had “resulted in an increasingly challenging environment for raising capital”. The New York Times reports the filing said it would be “prudent” to raise money “before even more companies have absorbed available capital”.

Microsoft offers buyouts

Microsoft said on Monday it would offer voluntary exit packages in select teams in the US, Canada, India and the UK. Reuters reports that about 60,000 employees are eligible, more than a quarter of the workforce. The Post says a Microsoft spokeswoman said a fraction of those eligible were expected to take the offer. CNBC reports that people who accept would leave on 31 December.

How big is the bill?

The Post cites a widely circulated draft paper by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a finance professor at Columbia University, which estimates the build-out will cost more than $10tn through 2032. Goldman Sachs, quoted by CNBC, estimates AI-related capital spending of about $7.6tn from 2026 to 2031.

The Post also reports that the research firm Gartner has predicted that 80% of “neocloud” firms, which rent out data-centre computing power, could fail or be forced to sell in the coming years.

Matt Orton of Raymond James Investment Management summed up the mood to the Post: “Take it when you can. Everyone is going to need more.” But he is optimistic about the eventual payoff, saying there will be “plenty of room for everyone to win significantly”. Atsi Sheth, the chief credit officer for Moody’s, told the Post it was healthy that investors were becoming more discriminating. The Post says that lowers the odds of the boom turning into a bubble.

Markets were upbeat on Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, AI-linked shares led Wall Street higher, with the S&P 500 up 0.6% and within 1.2% of its record high.