Anthropic is targeting a trading debut as early as next week amid a rebound in AI stocks, with CNBC's Jim Cramer arguing the IPO's outcome could determine whether the broader AI trade recovers — or stalls.
Anthropic is pushing toward a public market debut as early as next week, with the Claude developer scheduled to meet major investors this week ahead of a potential trading start as early as Thursday or Friday, according to people familiar with the matter — a timeline that some market watchers say could prove pivotal for the broader artificial intelligence sector.
The offering comes amid a sharp recovery in AI-related equities. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.74% on Monday, while the S&P 500 rose 2.35%, its best single session since April 8. Asian technology stocks tracked those gains on Tuesday, with SoftBank Group surging 12%, SK Hynix rising 8.01%, Samsung Electronics advancing 5.32%, and Tokyo Electron up 5.88%.
The rebound followed a bruising sell-off last week, driven by concerns that Democrats' sweeping victory in the U.S. midterm elections could lead to tighter restrictions on data-center development — potentially curbing demand for AI chips and infrastructure.
Against that backdrop, CNBC's Jim Cramer argued Monday that Anthropic's IPO has become a stress test for the entire AI investment thesis. "Without it, I don't see how the AI-related stocks can make a real recovery," Cramer said on "Mad Money." "I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that this could be one of the most consequential IPOs in history."
Cramer's reasoning centers on Anthropic's role at the end of what he described as the AI spending chain. Alphabet's Google, Amazon, and Nvidia have all invested in the company, making their valuations sensitive to how the IPO is received. SpaceX, which rents computing capacity to Anthropic, also has exposure: Google pays roughly $900 million a month for that capacity, while Anthropic's commitment has grown from an initial $1.25 billion monthly to more than $3 billion, according to its IPO prospectus.
"Anthropic is important because it is one of just a few companies at the end of the food chain for all of the AI data center investments that we've seen," Cramer said. "If it can't do that, or if it cannot convince enough investors that it will do so, then it's tough to justify all of the AI investments that are being made today."
Investor appetite, however, appears to have softened since the fall. Anthropic's potential valuation has reportedly slipped from as much as $2 trillion earlier this year to as low as $1 trillion following last week's tech sell-off.
Compounding the sector's uncertainty is an unrelated development at Nvidia. The chipmaker's board is investigating CEO Jensen Huang over an extramarital relationship with Megaspeed's Alice Huang, who U.S. intelligence agencies suspect of spying for China. Huang remains in his role, but Nvidia shares fell more than 4% Monday, extending a decline that has erased roughly 22% of the company's market value over the past month.
Cramer said the investigation has forced investors to reconsider a core assumption. "Given the facts of the story, which seem to get worse with each update, we are going to have to consider owning shares in a Jensen-less Nvidia," he said, adding that the Investing Club's longstanding "own it, don't trade it" posture on the stock is now under review.
He nonetheless stopped short of recommending investors exit the position, drawing a parallel to Apple's trajectory under Tim Cook after Steve Jobs' death. "I think Nvidia can go forward just on the strength of its multiyear product map," Cramer said.
Cramer also flagged heightened risk for smaller, heavily indebted cloud operators — including CoreWeave, Nebius, and Iren — that depend on outside capital to build data-center capacity. As of June 30, Nvidia held equity stakes in CoreWeave and Nebius, and in May announced a partnership with Iren that included warrants for up to 30 million shares.
Whether the Anthropic offering succeeds or stumbles, its reception is likely to set the tone for how public markets price the AI build-out thesis heading into year-end — and how willing capital markets remain to fund the data-center expansion that underpins demand across the sector.
Marc Sabatini is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering enterprise software, cybersecurity, and the regulatory beats that shape both. He focuses on the deal flow and policy decisions that move markets.
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