An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Anthropic investors expect the AI startup to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make the AI lab's debut the largest-ever initial public offering. Half a dozen of the company's backers told the FT that Anthropic's rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. A listing at that level could unlock billions of dollars in gains for the five-year-old company's early investors but would also test public markets that are growing more nervous about the AI boom. Anthropic's backers say booming demand for the lab's advanced AI models and tools justifies their lofty expectations. Investors expect the Claude maker's annualized revenue to be between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026 -- using the startup's preferred measure, which infers full-year sales from recent performance -- up by more than 10 times over the course of 2026. "If Anthropic is growing 800 percent a year, you'd think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [revenue]," said one investor in the group. "That would make them a $3 trillion company." According to Bloomberg (paywalled), Anthropic is currently in talks to acquire Decart AI for roughly $6 billion. "Decart develops world models alongside software designed to lower AI training expenses by improving how efficiently chips are utilized," reports Quartz. "That capability could allow Anthropic to get more out of its current infrastructure as demand grows. If the deal closes, Decart's team would join Anthropic's inference and performance organization."Read more of this story at Slashdot.