Anthropic, which lagged far behind just six months ago, has now left OpenAI trailing.
On May 26th, a report by The Information disclosed that Anthropic's annualized revenue has approached $450 billion, while OpenAI's annualized revenue has just exceeded $300 billion, currently estimated to be around $330 billion. This means Anthropic's revenue scale is at least 35% larger than OpenAI's.
This figure was almost unimaginable six months ago. At the end of 2025, Anthropic's annualized revenue was only $90 billion, less than half of OpenAI's.
In Five Months, Anthropic's Revenue Quintupled
In the first five months of this year, Anthropic's revenue grew approximately fivefold. During the same period, OpenAI's revenue grew by over 50%—impressive in any industry, but seemingly modest in comparison.
An informed source told The Information that while OpenAI's annualized revenue has surpassed $300 billion, "it's not significantly higher at the moment."
The two companies' business models differ: OpenAI's revenue primarily comes from ChatGPT subscriptions, whereas Anthropic mainly relies on selling API access for AI programming and other white-collar work scenarios to enterprises. However, they remain direct competitors in their respective markets, and public market investors will inevitably compare them side by side.
The Profitability Gap is Even Larger
Revenue is just one aspect. More critical is profitability.
Anthropic is projected to achieve approximately $559 million in operating profit for the second quarter, with an operating profit margin of about 5%.
OpenAI's situation is quite the opposite. OpenAI's operating loss rate reached a staggering 122% in the first quarter—and this is after excluding major items such as equity incentives. Translated, this means an operating loss of at least $7 billion for the quarter.
OpenAI's earlier forecasts for this year indicated it would burn through about $25 billion in cash, with AI server rental costs alone amounting to $32 billion. Furthermore, OpenAI must allocate 20% of its total revenue to Microsoft, an agreement lasting until 2030—if this year's revenue hits the previously projected $300 billion, this share would amount to roughly $6 billion.
Anthropic also shares revenue with its cloud partners, but Anthropic's revenue reporting includes the full amount sold through other cloud service providers, with portions of this income eventually being returned to these partners.
It is worth noting that Anthropic's current profitable status is not without risk. As revenue rapidly grows, Anthropic will need to significantly expand its server resources, which could potentially push it back into a loss-making position.
IPO Race: First-Mover Advantage is Changing Hands
This reversal in revenue and profitability directly impacts the IPO timelines of the two companies.
The report points out that OpenAI's CFO, Sarah Friar, had previously expressed concerns about CEO Sam Altman's eagerness to push for an IPO. But now, the situation is different—faced with the financially stronger Anthropic, OpenAI racing to go public first has become "the more financially prudent choice."
The logic is simple: if Anthropic files its IPO application first and successfully lists, public market investors will directly compare the financial data of the two companies. At that point, Anthropic, with its faster revenue growth and achieved profitability, would hold a clear advantage in the valuation narrative.
At the current growth rate, Anthropic is expected to surpass the revenue scale of established tech companies like Netflix, SAP, and Salesforce within the next year.
