Anthropic IPO filing lifts Gulf appetite for US AI

• Listings reaffirm Gulf investor strategies
• ‘All-out race’ between 3 companies
• SpaceX IPO later this month

The Gulf’s massive investments in artificial intelligence are getting fresh validation from Anthropic’s confidential filing for an initial public offering.

The San Francisco-based developer of the Claude model submitted early paperwork to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday in its formal first step towards a flotation long rumoured to take place in the next few months.

The move comes on the back of Anthropic’s latest funding round, which last week raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation.

UAE-based AI investor MGX said in a post on X it had participated in the raise. The Qatar Investment Authority invested in the company last year.

Elon Musk’s xAI and Sam Altman’s OpenAI are also advancing towards IPOs in what is shaping up to be a blockbuster year for the industry.

In a note on Monday, Dan Ives, global head of tech research at Wedbush Securities, called it an “all-out race” between these three companies “to get the much-desired liquidity from public markets”.

The forthcoming listings reaffirm Gulf investors’ strategies, underscoring how the capital they are putting into US AI companies is shaping the development of “the defining technology of our time,” said Mohammed Soliman, director at McLarty Associates.

“The real opportunity for the Gulf lies not only in the returns, but in using these partnerships to build genuine domestic AI capabilities across infrastructure, talent, models and applications,” he said.

xAI and chatbot Grok are set to go public later this month as part of SpaceX, which also encompasses the Starlink satellite operations. The IPO aims for a historic $1.75 trillion valuation to raise $75 billion.

Musk’s various endeavours secured funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, QIA, Oman Investment Authority, MGX, International Holding Company and other Gulf entities before being consolidated into SpaceX earlier this year.

Further reading:

• SpaceX gives Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom stock a rocket
• Gulf funds balance SpaceX potential against AI cash burn
• Gulf-backed Anthropic overtakes OpenAI in race to $1trn valuation

PIF has shown interest in upping its stake ahead of the IPO, according to Reuters.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holdings said its stake in SpaceX could be worth more than $10 billion, sending the Saudi company’s stock to a 10-year high on Monday.

OpenAI, meanwhile, is a central partner of Emirati technology group G42 in developing the Stargate UAE project, which seeks to build a 1 gigawatt AI data centre and associated infrastructure in the UAE.

The company is expected to file for a flotation in the coming weeks, Reuters reported.

“Balancing Anthropic, OpenAI and the Musk ecosystem is less about picking winners, since all three are already formidable, and more about strategic diversification,” said Soliman.

“[Gulf investors] engage each on its strengths,” he added. “Enterprise focus with Anthropic, scale and distribution with OpenAI, and frontier ambition with SpaceX.”

Cerebras, a California chipmaker that aims to rival Nvidia and has strong links to G42 and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, went public in mid-May.

It is now trading at around $215, above its set opening price of $185 but well below the $385 peak it reached on its first day on the Nasdaq.

In his note on Monday, Wedbush Securities’ Ives cited the possibility of an economic downturn in the US and mounting competition between developers at “every layer of the AI stack” among the downside risks to the IPOs.