Anthropic closes $30 billion round and becomes world's most valuable AI startup at over $900 billion valuation
What it really says
Anthropic, the developer of the AI assistant Claude, is closing a funding round of over $30 billion during the week of May 26, according to Bloomberg - at a valuation exceeding $900 billion. This makes Anthropic the world's most valuable private AI company for the first time, surpassing OpenAI ($852 billion in March 2026). The round is co-led by Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Altimeter Capital, and Greenoaks Capital Partners, each investing approximately $2 billion. Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and General Catalyst are also participating. This is already Anthropic's second $30 billion round in 2026 - in February, the company closed a round at a $380 billion valuation. Annualized revenue grew from $9 billion at end of 2025 to over $30 billion by April 2026, and is projected to exceed $50 billion by end of June. In parallel, on May 19, Anthropic recruited OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy to bolster its pretraining team. Additionally, SpaceX's IPO prospectus revealed that Anthropic pays $1.25 billion monthly to SpaceX for GPU compute capacity at the Colossus data centers - a contract worth up to $45 billion through May 2029. An Anthropic IPO is expected for October 2026.
Our assessment
These numbers are staggering - and they illustrate how extremely concentrated the AI industry has become. Two companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, are each valued at nearly one trillion dollars. Combined, they have raised over $100 billion in capital in 2026 alone - more than the GDP of many countries. For those concerned about AI power concentration, this warrants attention: when two American companies dominate the development of the most powerful AI systems, the geopolitical consequences are significant. At the same time, there is a positive aspect: competition. Anthropic overtaking OpenAI shows that no single company holds a monopoly. Anthropic positions itself as a safety-focused company - the question is whether this commitment can be maintained under a $900 billion valuation and pressure from investors and IPO plans. The recruitment of Karpathy highlights the intense talent war: the best AI researchers move between a handful of firms.
Relevance for Germany
For Germany and Europe, Anthropic's rise highlights a structural problem: all frontier AI development takes place in the United States. Anthropic's compute costs alone - $1.25 billion monthly for GPUs - far exceed the German government's entire annual AI budget. The EU has established the regulatory framework with the AI Act, but no European organization can compete with these investment levels. According to a Bitkom study, 71% of German AI users use ChatGPT and 43% use Copilot - European alternatives play virtually no role. The Telekom-SAP deal for a sovereign AI platform (250 million euros) appears modest compared to Anthropic's financing. The digital dependency on US providers, which 72% of Germans consider too high according to Bitkom, is further reinforced by this development.
Fact check
The $900 billion-plus valuation and expected closing during the week of May 26 come from Bloomberg reports dated May 12 and May 22, 2026. Revenue figures ($30 billion annualized by April 2026) are consistently reported by PYMNTS, TechTimes, and CNBC. Karpathy's move to Anthropic on May 19 is documented by his own X post and corroborating reports from TechCrunch, Axios, and CNBC. The SpaceX compute costs ($1.25 billion monthly) come from SpaceX's official IPO prospectus, as reported by TechCrunch and Axios on May 20. The final closing of the round had not been officially confirmed at the time of publication.
Source
- • https://www.techtimes.com/articles/317066/20260523/anthropic-funding-round-top-30b-900b-valuation-would-surpass-openai-most-valuable-ai-startup.htm
- • https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/openai-co-founder-andrej-karpathy-joins-anthropics-pre-training-team/
- • https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/anthropic-will-pay-xai-1-25-billion-per-month-for-compute/
- • https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/19/anthropic-hires-openai-cofounder-andrej-karpathy-former-tesla-ai-lead.html