BREAKINGVIEWS-AI capital race sprints into winnowing phase

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Karen Kwok

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Anthropic and Meta are tapping equity markets for up to $195 bln, a third of last year's total issuance. SpaceX also struck a $40 bln chip deal. Giants can lean on their fundraising edge as tighter credit and slipping stocks stymie upstarts. The cost to do so, however, is rising.

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Anthropic on October 26 unveiled its prospectus for an initial public offering that could value the artificial intelligence lab at as much as $2 trillion, Reuters previously reported.

Meta Platforms said on the same day that it intends to raise up to $95 billion in its largest-ever equity fundraising. The Facebook and Instagram owner has initiated public offerings for about $35 billion in common and preferred stock, and filed for a separate at-the-market program to sell non-voting shares worth as much as $60 billion.

SpaceX said separately that an affiliate of investment firm Apollo Global Management would buy AI chips and server hardware ‌and lease them to the billionaire Elon Musk's rockets-to-AI company, in a deal with total principal payments of about $40 billion.

(Editing by Jonathan Guilford; Production by Pranav Kiran)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on KWOK/karen.kwok@thomsonreuters.com))