The key facts

  • Blackstone expects a double B range rating for Anthropic after the IPO — previously it had promised an investment-grade rating until 2027
  • The rating affects the cost and availability of borrowed funds for financing large deals on computing capacity
  • Anthropic filed for an IPO this week; the companies declined to comment

Blackstone's forecast has changed

Anthropic, according to the Financial Times, is likely to receive a high $63 billion deal (speculative) credit rating after going public. Blackstone, the anchor investor in the recent deal to finance chip purchases — the investment firm Blackstone — told deal participants about this expected assessment. Earlier, FT notes, Blackstone had claimed the opposite: that the maker of Claude would receive an investment-grade rating, indicating low risk for lenders, until 2027. Now, according to the publication, Blackstone expects a rating in the double B range — the top tier of the speculative category.

What this means for the company

Blackstone's forecast is only an assumption, but a high junk rating would make raising funds for Anthropic more difficult and expensive. This matters against the backdrop of the company's massive spending: over the past 12 months, the lab has signed a series of large deals for computing capacity, which, as TechCrunch notes citing FT context, worried investors. Anthropic officially filed for an IPO this week, which sparked widespread discussion about how such a large offering could affect the entire AI industry. TechCrunch reached out to Anthropic and Blackstone for comment, but both companies declined to comment.