Anthropic is planning to push back the clock. According to a September 19 report by the Wall Street Journal, the developer of Claude plans to delay its initial public offering (IPO) to November, one month later than many investors had previously expected in October. According to insiders, some advisors believe waiting an additional month would allow the company to present its third-quarter financial data, proving its competitive position with real money - this report is the most solid tool for persuasion right now.

The market's appetite has grown large. Investors previously expected Anthropic's IPO valuation to be around $2 trillion (approximately 13.44 trillion yuan at the current exchange rate), with fundraising reaching up to $10 billion (about 67.2185 billion yuan), both aiming to surpass the record set by SpaceX in June this year. The company will meet with potential investors in the coming days, and some people expect them to raise questions on the spot: If the release of AI models slows down, can your finances and valuation still hold up? Advisors and existing shareholders are confident that slowing down won't cause serious damage, as the existing models are already generating continuous cash flow. They estimate that the company's annual revenue will exceed $110 billion (approximately 73.9403 billion yuan) by the end of 2026.

An interesting twist is the timeline. The decision to set the IPO in November was reportedly made before a former researcher publicly warned about the rapid development of AI and the debate on whether it should be slowed down, meaning the delay was not directly due to the safety controversy. However, on September 17, Anthropic first gathered early investors and partners at its headquarters, where executives such as Jared Kaplan, Benjamin Mann, and Andrej Karpathy presented new products, including a tool called Model Hardware Standard - it allows AI agents to directly control physical devices such as microscopes and robotic arms, extending the "hands" of the model into laboratories and factories. That night, during a dinner at a steakhouse in San Francisco, the conversation returned to CEO Dario Amodei's safety warnings and the resulting public controversy.

Many Silicon Valley investment institutions actually think that Amodei clearly stating his safety stance before the IPO is a smart move. One investor pointed out: Once it becomes a public company, it will face more stringent scrutiny from shareholders. By clearly stating its position on risk issues in advance, it provides a buffer for any potential problems that may arise in the future. In other words, the safety narrative has quietly been turned from a "hurdle" into an "amulet."

The pace of competitors is also stirring this game. The biggest competitor, OpenAI, has clearly stated it will not go public before 2027 and is currently in the early stages of a new round of financing discussions. If it succeeds, its valuation could exceed $1.2 trillion - the last time it raised over $12 billion from investors. Some Anthropic investors have their own calculations: if OpenAI raises funds of the same scale before the company's IPO, the market demand for Anthropic might be partially taken away. This IPO is destined to start in the capital battle between the two giants.