Should Anthropic press pause on a potential $2trn IPO?

The Economist

5 min read17 Sep 2026, 10:51 PM IST

Summary

The explosion of worry was set off by warnings from researchers at Anthropic that there were credible fears within the company that AI could wipe out humanity in a matter of years.

FOR All its five and a half years of existence, Anthropic has grappled with the tension between building artificial intelligence safely and making enough money to push forward the frontier of research. On September 12th that tension came to a head. Dario Amodei, the AI lab’s boss, called on the industry to “slow the pace” of AI development, just as his firm was believed to be on the verge of launching what may be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of all time.