The anchor investor behind a massive chip financing arrangement has revised its financial outlook for Anthropic as public market preparations proceed. According to a Financial Times report, the investment giant Blackstone told investors in a recent $63 billion deal to finance Anthropic’s chips that it now expects the company to receive a high speculative junk rating following its initial public offering.
Previously, Blackstone anticipated that the developer of Claude would secure an investment-grade rating indicating low risk for lenders before 2027. Current projections place the anticipated credit status in the double B range, representing the top tier of speculative junk grade. The adjustment stems from an intensive spending spree that has defined the company's operations over the past 12 months, during which the enterprise secured large compute power deals to support its infrastructure demands.
Anthropic officially filed to go public earlier this week. Although Blackstone’s forecast remains a prediction and both Anthropic and Blackstone declined to comment when reached by TechCrunch, a high junk rating introduces clear financial friction. Such a classification increases the difficulty and cost of raising capital required to maintain the heavy compute expenditures underpinning the business model, directly impacting the borrowing costs and unit economics driving generative AI infrastructure expansion.
What it means
Anthropic heads into its public offering backing a massive $63 billion compute financing deal, yet Blackstone expects it to land in high speculative-grade territory instead of prime investment grade. A near-trillion-dollar valuation no longer protects Anthropic from expensive debt.
Our stories: Anthropic’s $965B IPO: Can Safe AI Survive Wall Street? (June 1); Anthropic $965 Billion IPO: High Valuation vs Chinese Rivalry (August 12).