The "arms race" in the global artificial intelligence field is accelerating at an astonishing scale of capital. According to reports from the UK's Financial Times citing informed sources, AI star company Anthropic is about to complete a new round of funding worth up to $25 billion (approximately 174.691 billion yuan), with its post-investment valuation surging to $350 billion (approximately 2.45 trillion yuan) — a figure that not only breaks its own record but also places Anthropic among the most valuable startups globally.
This round of funding features an elite lineup: Sequoia Capital, a long-standing legend in the venture capital world, has publicly participated in Anthropic's funding for the first time, while Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and the renowned US technology investment firm Coatue each invested $1.5 billion. Notably, this is not the first time Anthropic has received substantial support — in 2024, Microsoft and NVIDIA had committed up to $15 billion in strategic investments; and just last September, the company completed a $13 billion Series F round, with a valuation of $183 billion. Within just a few months, its valuation nearly doubled, highlighting the unprecedented betting by the capital market on the general artificial intelligence (AGI) sector.
Anthropic has rapidly risen in the enterprise AI application market through its self-developed large model series, Claude. Its technology centers around "Constitutional AI," emphasizing safety and controllability, making it highly favored in industries with strict compliance requirements such as finance, law, and healthcare. As enterprises move AI deployment from pilot projects to large-scale implementation, Anthropic's API usage and customer renewal rates have continuously increased, becoming a key fundamental factor supporting its sky-high valuation.
Although concerns about the AI bubble have never disappeared, strong commercial demand continues to validate its value. As an early mentor of tech giants like Google, Apple, and YouTube, Sequoia Capital's entry into Anthropic signifies both recognition of the technology roadmap and a clear signal: today, in the deepening competition of large models, AI companies with secure architecture, engineering strength, and commercialization capabilities are becoming scarce assets.
When the $350 billion valuation surpasses most S&P 500 companies, every step of Anthropic is pulling at the global tech landscape. This AI race driven by capital, computing power, and algorithms is no longer just a technological contest, but a struggle for the dominance of digital civilization over the next decade.
