Anthropic priced its initial public offering at $70 to $78 per share on Tuesday, setting the stage for a Nasdaq debut that could value the AI company at as much as $1.4 trillion.

The pricing range, disclosed ahead of a pre-IPO roadshow, marks the sharpest step yet in Anthropic's march to public markets. The company is expected to finalize its share price on Wednesday and begin trading next Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "ANT," The New York Times reported.

What does the $70-$78 range mean for the valuation?

At the top of the range, Anthropic would command a valuation of up to $1.4 trillion — a jump from its most recent private valuation of $900 billion, according to the Times.

Even the midpoint represents a substantial step up for a company that has scaled from research lab to one of the defining names in artificial intelligence. The targeted figure remains below SpaceX's headline valuation when that company went public, but the comparison ends there.

Anthropic could raise as much as $100 billion in the transaction, its Tuesday filing shows. That would exceed the $86 billion SpaceX raised in its June IPO by roughly $14 billion — the gap flagged in the deal's early coverage.

Who is backing the offering?

The raise rests on an anticipated $26 billion in investment from a roster of the largest names in technology. The list of backers, per the filing, includes:

• Google
• Nvidia
• Advanced Micro Devices
• Broadcom
• Micron Technology
• Microsoft

The breadth of that syndicate matters as much as its size. Strategic capital from chipmakers, cloud infrastructure players and hyperscalers signals that Anthropic's public market debut carries explicit endorsement from the companies that build and power the computing stack its business depends on.

Why is the roadshow starting now?

The pricing announcement opened Anthropic's pre-IPO roadshow, the period when management meets institutional investors to drum up excitement, gauge demand and answer questions before the final share price is set.

The timing is deliberately defiant. Anthropic is pushing ahead even as rival OpenAI and several other major companies, including health-wearables maker Oura, have pumped the brakes on their IPO plans amid turbulent markets. A completed listing at or near the top of the range would make Anthropic the exception in a hesitant window — and the benchmark every later AI issuer will be measured against.

The schedule is tight. A Wednesday pricing followed by a Thursday debut on the Nasdaq leaves little room for the kind of delay that has stalled other offerings this year.

What does the IPO signal about the AI sector?

Experts say Anthropic's IPO will serve as a key indicator of investor confidence in the AI sector. The listing arrives at an awkward political moment, particularly in the aftermath of the midterm elections.

In elections across the U.S., voters rejected measures that would have supported data-center permitting or construction. They also approved measures that banned, paused, or placed additional restrictions on development, raising industry concerns about a coming slowdown.

That tension gives the offering a weight beyond Anthropic's own balance sheet. Data centers are the physical substrate of the AI economy, and a wave of local and state restrictions on their construction could raise costs or delay capacity for every player in the field, Anthropic included. How institutional investors price that regulatory risk — in the middle of a roadshow — will shape the terms of every AI listing that follows.

What happens after the debut?

The headline numbers are the easy part. A $100 billion raise would be the largest of the year's listings, and a $1.4 trillion top-end valuation would place Anthropic among the most valuable public companies in the world from day one.

The hard part comes after the IPO. Anthropic must justify that valuation against open questions: whether investor appetite for AI holds after the election-season backlash over data-center development, whether rivals that delayed their own listings return to market at better terms, and whether the company's strategic backers remain aligned once public-market disclosure requirements apply.

For now, the calendar is fixed. Price Wednesday, debut Thursday, ticker ANT — and roughly $100 billion riding on the answer.