Investors are closely watching Anthropic‘s IPO to get an understanding of the company and to see how financing an AI buildout is evolving. 

Over the past year, hyperscalers have issued more than $400 billion in debt to pay for the AI data center buildout, Brooks Wilhelm, assistant vice president, portfolio manager and senior credit analyst at Western and Southern Financial Group, told FinAi News. 

To manage debt and meet obligations, the combined hyperscaler [Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle] free cash flow has flipped negative, falling to about -$1.6 billion, compared to over $7 billion in 2024, according to investment company Hedgeye‘s Oct. 22 tweet.  

Combined hyperscaler free cash flow has flipped negative, falling to about -$1.6 billion. https://t.co/Xzzedr2tWq

— Hedgeye (@Hedgeye) October 22, 2026 

Going forward, he said, many AI companies and hyperscalers will issue equity rounds as an alternative to debt financing, which should calm investors’ nerves. 

By issuing equity, companies can better manage their debt-to-equity ratio, an important metric watched by investors, Mike Mayo, analyst at Wells Fargo, told FinAi News.  

“The debt ratios go down the more equity you issue,” he said. 

Meta, for example, announced last week that it will issue as much as $95 billion in equity to fund its AI buildout, Wilhelm said. 

Anthropic going public is also good for the AI economy as it provides more clarity to investors, Wilhelm said. The company filed its S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission Oct. 26. 

“Being able to see exactly what their stock is worth, being able to see exactly what their revenue projections are, or revenue figures are, their profitability, etc., on a quarterly basis, gives a lot more visibility into how the overall kind of AI consumption and monetization is playing out,” he said. 

Shadow Supply 

Many data centers are built with companies such as Anthropic in mind, with a promise that future payments will come, Wilhelm said. He said it’s called shadow supply in the industry. 

“Now, all of a sudden that seems to be a different proposition,” he said. 

Anthropic has more than $700 billion to back its shadow supply, according to the company’s S-1 filing.  

Tech giants such as Anthropic might have to raise money from public markets after debt markets get saturated or too many fund managers hit their exposure limit to the sector, Wilhelm said. 

“I don’t think liquidity is shrinking,” he said. “I think you’re going to find the market start to be reaching limits with respect to kind of individual counterparty risk [and] just overall exposure to this particular asset class.” 

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