Overview
- The company announced on Thursday that it closed a $65 billion financing that values Anthropic at about $965 billion, making it the most valuable private AI firm ahead of OpenAI.
- Anthropic published Claude Opus 4.8 at the same time, highlighting improved programming and reasoning and a new “Effort Control” option that lets users limit how much compute the model uses for responses.
- The firm said the funds will be focused on buying and expanding compute resources and product rollout, and reports say Anthropic has struck large capacity arrangements, including a reported multibillion deal for SpaceX Colossus access.
- Analysts and reporting project rapid revenue growth for Anthropic this year, with some estimates that it could out-earn OpenAI by roughly 35 percent and record its first operating profit in the second quarter.
- Anthropic is managing a legal fight with the U.S. Department of Defense over restrictions on military use of its models while holding back higher-risk releases such as Mythos as it builds safety and interpretability controls and prepares for a likely 2026 IPO.