저자: MBCNEWS · 외국인
요약 보기
AI 기업 앤트로픽(Anthropic)이 미국 증권거래위원회(SEC)에 상장 등록서를 제출하며 나스닥 상장 절차에 들어갔다. 티커는 ANT이며 다음 달 상장이 예상되고, 공모가 범위는 아직 확정되지 않았다. 등록 서류 약 400쪽 중 거의 100쪽이 AI 기업에 불리한 위험 요소에 할애됐는데, AI가 인류에 치명적 위험을 줄 수 있다는 점을 인정했고, 사람의 승인 없이 Claude가 미국 선거 데이터에 접근한 실제 사례도 공개했다. 데이터센터 반발, 국방부 블랙리스트 등재와 해제 경위, 트럼프 행정부와의 소송, 메모리 반도체 공급망 불확실성도 위험 요소로 언급됐다. 시장에서는 최대 1000억 달러 규모 공모와 최대 2조 달러 기업가치를 예상한다. 올해 상반기 매출은 14배 넘게 늘어 162억 달러를 넘었지만 순손실은 807억 달러로 크게 확대됐다. 3분기 매출 성장 둔화로 실적이 기대에 못 미쳤고, 금리 인상 부담과 데이터센터 건설 지연 가능성도 기업가치 하락 요인으로 거론됐다. 한편 스페이스X는 750억 달러를 조달해 주식시장 사상 최대 규모로 상장했고, 첫날 주가가 약 20% 올랐다. 머스크는 자산 1조 달러로 세계 첫 '조만장자'가 됐다. 상장 기대감으로 AI 관련주가 침체에서 벗어났지만, 과열과 수익성에 대한 우려는 여전하다.
다듬은 글
Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, has formally entered the public listing process by filing its IPO registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Its ticker symbol will be ANT, and a Nasdaq listing is expected next month. Details such as the proposed offering price range have not yet been finalized.
Anthropic will list on Nasdaq before OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The company has acknowledged that AI could pose a catastrophic risk to humanity, and it devoted nearly 100 pages of its roughly 400-page filing to material that is unfavorable to AI companies. A day earlier, it also disclosed an actual incident in which Claude accessed U.S. election data without human approval.
The risk disclosures also cover backlash against data centers, the company's past placement on and later removal from the U.S. Department of Defense's blacklist, its lawsuit with the Trump administration, and uncertainty in the memory chip supply chain. At the same time, the company emphasized life sciences innovation as AI's greatest opportunity, pointing to its potentially decisive role in treating cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
The market expects an offering of up to $100 billion and a valuation of up to $2 trillion. That would surpass both the funding amount and valuation X raised in June. Revenue in the first half of the year grew more than 14-fold to over $16.2 billion, but the net loss also widened sharply to $80.7 billion. That has become a burden, as concerns about AI overinvestment and the stability of profitability grow.
Expectations for Anthropic's listing lifted AI-related stocks off a prolonged slump, and as international oil prices dipped slightly, all three major New York indexes rose.
Elon Musk, founder of the U.S. space company SpaceX, celebrated the company's stock market debut amid cheers from employees. At the same moment, the opening bell rang at the New York Stock Exchange, and the Nasdaq listing was announced. SpaceX raised $75 billion, about 114 trillion won, the largest amount ever raised in stock market history, and its shares jumped nearly 20% on the first day of trading. Musk, the largest shareholder and CEO, became the world's first "trillionaire" with assets of $1 trillion.
That asset figure exceeds the GDP of Taiwan, the world's 22nd-largest economy, and is more than the combined wealth of the next four richest people. Roughly 4,400 employees who held company shares also became millionaires. Concerns about a bubble have followed the company's sudden leap to sixth place by market capitalization despite a $5 billion loss last year. Warnings that investors are paying too much for unproven promises have been joined by criticism that the ambitious plan to build AI data centers in space has only a 7% chance of success. On the other hand, extreme optimists argue that even if a $2 trillion market cap is a bubble, it is a stock that is hard to pass up, and that optimism is fueling the excitement.
Whether the "Musk premium," which has moved beyond traditional valuation models on the strength of successes such as Tesla, will once again meet investor expectations is the key question.
Anthropic's results fell short of expectations. Its third-quarter results, released last week, showed revenue of $16.8 billion over three months. Compared with $4.7 billion in the first quarter and $11.5 billion in the second, that is more than 3.5-fold growth in just half a year. Tripling revenue in two years is itself highly unusual, but disappointment arose because the growth rate slowed from the previous quarter.
OpenAI's earnings announcement drew a similar reaction. Its roughly $50 billion revenue figure was judged below estimates. Later it emerged that the gap stemmed from a difference in accounting methods, but that clarification did not calm market anxiety. The reaction to both companies' results shows a market that has become extremely sensitive to negative signals.
Recent interest rate increases are also likely to have had an effect. Many companies have made investments of historic scale and have signaled even larger ones ahead, making them highly sensitive to interest rates. Companies that have run their businesses on outside investment or interest-bearing debt rather than their own capital now face a test. Oracle, which is building data centers with borrowed money that carries interest, falls into this category. Smaller companies face interest rates above 10% when they borrow.
Large tech companies such as Google, which have mainly relied on massive operating profits, are in somewhat better shape, but they too face the strain of taking on debt for capital spending. OpenAI and Anthropic, which have operated on investment capital and equity that carries no interest obligation, are equally uncomfortable with rate hikes. When interest rates rise in the midst of preparing for a listing, valuations inevitably fall. In fact, Anthropic's valuation, previously estimated at $2 trillion, has recently been sharply lowered to $1.5 trillion.
Deteriorating public sentiment toward data center construction ahead of the U.S. midterm elections could also pose a threat. Local governments that once actively courted data centers with subsidies and tax breaks are now shifting toward refusing new permits. This reflects growing resident opposition over rising electricity bills and limited employment benefits.
If data center completion is delayed, companies will not only be unable to deliver services to meet demand, but may also find themselves in a situation where financing costs rise and expensively purchased semiconductor equipment sits idle.
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