Key Takeaways
- As of mid-2026 Anthropic holds the higher mark: a $965 billion valuation from its $65 billion Series H, against OpenAI’s $852 billion from a $122 billion round in March.
- Anthropic eclipsed OpenAI in valuation for the first time in May 2026, helped by explosive growth in Claude Code.
- On reported revenue run rate, Anthropic also leads – about $47 billion versus OpenAI’s roughly $24 billion (around $2 billion a month).
- Both filed confidentially for an IPO days apart: Anthropic on June 1 and OpenAI on June 8, 2026, setting up a side-by-side public-market test.
- OpenAI’s chief executive is pushing advisers for a $1 trillion IPO, and the company may delay rather than accept a lower figure.
- The future order is not settled: OpenAI carries larger losses and heavier infrastructure commitments, while Anthropic faces a US government supply-chain dispute and export-control friction.
Artificial intelligence – artistic impression. Image credit: Numan Ali via Unsplash, free license
Right now, Anthropic has the higher valuation. Its May 2026 Series H closed at a $965 billion post-money figure, while OpenAI’s most recent private mark sits at $852 billion. That ordering is recent – Anthropic passed OpenAI for the first time in May 2026 – and it is driven as much by revenue as by hype, since Anthropic’s reported run rate now runs ahead of its rival’s.
Whether that holds is the harder question. Both companies filed confidentially to go public within a week of each other, which means the market – not a negotiated private round – is about to set the number for the first time. The answer turns on three things: how fast each company’s revenue is actually growing, how large their losses and spending commitments are, and how investors weigh the risks each one carries into its debut.
Where the Numbers Stand Today
The valuation gap is real but not enormous. Anthropic raised $65 billion in a round led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia, nearly tripling its $380 billion valuation from February. OpenAI’s $852 billion came from a record $122 billion package co-led by SoftBank, with participation from Nvidia, Microsoft, and others. On the income side, Anthropic reported a roughly $47 billion run rate in May 2026, up from $30 billion earlier in the year and about $10 billion a year before, while OpenAI’s revenue was running near $2 billion a month – a figure that points to roughly $24 billion annualized.
| Metric | Anthropic | OpenAI |
|---|---|---|
| Latest private valuation | $965B (Series H, May 2026) | $852B (March 2026) |
| Most recent raise | $65B | $122B |
| Reported revenue run rate | ~$47B | ~$24B (≈$2B/month) |
| Confidential IPO filing | June 1, 2026 | June 8, 2026 |
| IPO valuation talk | Near $1 trillion | $730B to $1T-plus target |
Why Anthropic Pulled Ahead
Anthropic’s surge owes a lot to enterprise software, especially Claude Code, its agentic coding tool, plus growing demand for products like Cowork. Coding revenue scaled fast enough to lift the whole company’s run rate above its rival’s, and a wave of business adoption gave investors a clean growth story. The company’s cybersecurity work, headlined by the restricted Mythos line, added to the narrative that it sits at the frontier on capability. The race between the two firms’ developer tools is the subject of our look at Codex versus Claude Code, and the wider three-way contest appears in xAI vs OpenAI vs Anthropic.
Why OpenAI Could Still Reclaim the Top Spot
OpenAI remains the larger consumer brand, with ChatGPT serving more than 900 million weekly users, and its chief executive, Sam Altman, has pushed advisers hard for a $1 trillion IPO valuation. Reporting suggests OpenAI may wait until 2027 rather than accept a lower figure, betting that its financials will mature into the target. Microsoft’s roughly 27% stake gives it deep enterprise distribution, and the company is courting implementation partners through a new 300,000-consultant partner network. If revenue growth reaccelerates and public markets reward scale, OpenAI could retake the lead at listing.
The headwinds are equally real. OpenAI is heavily loss-making – one quarter showed $3.7 billion burned against $5.7 billion in revenue – and it has committed well over a trillion dollars to data-center and infrastructure spending, with profitability not expected until around 2030. Its CFO countered growth doubts by pointing to strong demand, but the size of its compute obligations is part of why it is going public at all. The capital intensity behind those commitments is explored in our piece on OpenAI’s infrastructure push.
The Risks That Could Reorder the Race
Anthropic carries its own uncertainties. The Pentagon designated the company a supply-chain risk, putting it in a legal dispute with the US government, and a recent export-control directive suspended its most advanced Mythos-class models worldwide – friction that public investors tend to dislike. OpenAI, meanwhile, is still completing its conversion from a nonprofit-controlled structure to a for-profit public benefit corporation, a governance change that adds its own complexity. Both face fierce competition, including from SpaceX’s AI arm, which went public in June 2026 at a market value above $2 trillion.
The Verdict
For now, Anthropic holds the higher valuation, backed by a higher reported revenue run rate and the momentum from Claude Code. Looking ahead, the order is genuinely contested. If OpenAI lands its trillion-dollar listing, it would jump back ahead; if Anthropic prices first and its enterprise growth keeps compounding, it could stay on top and set the comparable that prices its rival. The two confidential filings, days apart, mean the market will soon deliver a verdict that no private round can – and the first real test is which company’s disclosed financials hold up under public scrutiny. For a broader sense of how these labs differentiate beyond valuation, see which LLM answers user queries best.
If you are interested in this topic, we suggest you check our articles:
- xAI vs OpenAI vs Anthropic: Which AI Lab Wins in 2026?
- OpenAI’s Infrastructure Push: Becoming Its Own Cloud Provider
- Does OpenAI Want Over 300,000 AI Consultants?
- Claude’s 2026 Trajectory: Growth, Features, and Market Position
- Codex vs Claude Code Upgrades: Who Is Leading Now?
Sources: Anthropic (Series H), CNBC, Fortune, TechCrunch, Investing.com
Written by Alius Noreika
