Anthropic faces IPO valuation recalculations after data center backlash

Wall Street investment banks and institutional funds are adjusting their financial models for Anthropic’s highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) after voters in several US states delivered stinging ballot rebukes against expanding artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure.

According to reports published by CNBC and Axios, early valuation targets that had floated figures as high as $1.5 trillion are facing sharp pushback from prospective institutional backers, who cite escalating energy constraints and grassroots local opposition.

The midterm election fallout for big tech

In Tuesday’s US midterm elections, local referendums across Virginia, Georgia, and Ohio rejected tax incentives and utility zoning permits for massive server facilities:

• Voter concerns over grid capacity: Residents voted against utility rate increases designed to subsidize gigawatt-scale power demands from next-generation training clusters.
• Water and environmental impact: Communities expressed alarm over massive water consumption required for server cooling in drought-prone counties.
• Regulatory delays: Stalled permits threaten to inflate the operational costs of deploying trillion-parameter frontier models.

Wall Street recalibrates AI valuations

While Anthropic and its peers continue to report unprecedented enterprise revenue growth, fund managers noted that infrastructure bottlenecks represent a material risk factor in IPO prospectus filings.

Analysts emphasize that the debate does not reflect diminishing demand for intelligent software, but rather a transition where physical power availability dictating corporate growth rates rather than venture capital checks alone.