Anthropic may get high 'junk' rating after IPO, FT reports

Anthropic is on track to receive a high “junk” rating from credit agencies once it completes its initial public offering, the Financial Times reported, citing Blackstone, the investment firm that anchored a recent $63 billion deal to finance the AI lab’s chips. Blackstone told investors in that deal it now expects Anthropic to land in the double-B range — the top tier of speculative-grade, or “junk,” ratings — after the IPO. That marks a reversal: Blackstone had previously told the same investors that Anthropic would earn an investment-grade rating, signaling low risk to lenders, before 2027.

Blackstone’s own forecast is still just a prediction, and neither Anthropic nor Blackstone would comment when TechCrunch asked. But a junk-grade rating at the high end would still raise Anthropic’s borrowing costs and complicate its ability to fund the aggressive spending — a run of large compute deals over the past 12 months — that has already unsettled some investors.

Why it matters

Anthropic filed paperwork to go public earlier this week, and the move has already set off speculation about what the IPO will mean for the broader AI industry. A junk-grade cost of capital would make Anthropic’s compute-heavy growth plans more expensive to finance just as the lab tries to prove its IPO case to public investors.