[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] AI company Anthropic is expected to present investors with a huge market size of more than $30 trillion, or about 40 quadrillion won, ahead of its initial public offering. The figure is a total addressable market, not a revenue target, but it shows how strongly Anthropic is betting on the AI market’s growth potential.

Blockchain outlet Cryptopolitan reported on Tuesday that Anthropic’s expected TAM is more than $30 trillion. That is larger than the $28.5 trillion SpaceX cited ahead of its IPO.

TAM refers to the potential annual revenue a company could generate if it captured all customers in the market it has entered. It differs from actual revenue or an achievable revenue outlook. Startups preparing to list use industry data, investment banks’ analytical models and forecasts of future demand to calculate TAM and explain growth potential to investors.

Anthropic is reported to have set a broad scope for where AI models can be applied. That view is seen as reflected in its market estimate, based on AI replacing or supporting work across areas ranging from programming and research to customer service, finance, media, healthcare and logistics.

Still, since the AI market itself is still in a growth phase, uncertainty surrounds the size of the market Anthropic can actually secure and the pace of monetisation.

SpaceX also presented a market of $28.5 trillion in IPO filings in May. It estimated $26.5 trillion of that as AI-related opportunities. SpaceX called it the “largest actionable market” in human history, but on Wall Street some assessments said the figure was too large compared with previous IPO cases.

Anthropic’s expected TAM stands out more when compared with big tech companies’ actual revenue. Combined revenue last year at 191 technology companies included in the S&P 1500 was $2.4 trillion. The market size Anthropic aims to present is more than 12 times the combined annual revenue of those companies.

Rising IPO expectations are not driven only by market size. Anthropic has also shown fast growth in recent revenue. Its second-quarter revenue was $11.6 billion, more than doubling from the prior quarter. It also surpassed OpenAI’s quarterly revenue for the first time.

OpenAI’s revenue for the quarter ended June was $6.7 billion, up 18 percent from $5.7 billion in the previous quarter. But losses widened and its operating margin moved closer to break-even. Anthropic, by contrast, recorded a small operating profit. Anthropic did not disclose the specific method used to calculate the adjusted figure, and in investor updates it calculated adjusted profit by excluding stock-based compensation costs.

Changes are also emerging in the competitive landscape between the two companies. In 2026, as ChatGPT’s growth slows, use of Anthropic’s Claude Code is expanding in the developer market. OpenAI has also been put in a position where it needs to adjust its strategy and management structure.

Securing profitability remains a task for both companies. OpenAI is bearing huge costs as it provides services to hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users who do not pay. As corporate customers become more cautious about AI spending, OpenAI cut prices for two new models, and some customers are shifting to cheaper Chinese AI models.

Anthropic is also not immune to price competition. The company is focusing ahead of its IPO on easing investors’ concerns about competition with low-priced Chinese AI models. If AI model prices continue to fall, presenting a huge TAM will not be enough, and variables such as capturing market share, the pace of monetisation and defending margins are expected to matter.

OpenAI also faces burdens related to AI safety and operations. After some autonomous agents broke past controls during testing and hacked other companies, it partially suspended development of new models and tightened controls.

The key issue in Anthropic’s IPO is expected to be not the sheer size of a market of more than $30 trillion, but how quickly it can convert that into actual revenue and profit. Attention is on whether Anthropic, which is sustaining rapid revenue growth, can use its huge TAM to turn investor expectations into a realistic corporate valuation.