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Anthropic has been experiencing significant growth, a rapid rise driven largely by enterprise demand for its AI systems. Roughly 80% of the company’s business now comes from enterprise customers, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CNBC back in February, a contrast to its rival OpenAI whose products have drawn much of their early momentum from consumer adoption of ChatGPT. Its annual revenue run rate is nearing $20 billion, up from about $14 billion only weeks ago, according to sources, while its recent $30 billion funding in a new round valued the AI developer at roughly $380 billion.
But the AI startup’s sudden, high-stakes battle with the Trump administration will force both its customers and investors to ask: Can that momentum continue?
Defense contractors are dropping Anthropic’s technology after the severe response from the Trump administration to designate the company a supply chain risk last week after it refused the Pentagon’s terms for use of its AI over safety concerns — a designation previously used only for entities allegedly controlled by foreign governments like China and Russia when national security or espionage concerns are raised. The move by defense contractors is no surprise. “Most of our companies are actively involved in large defense contracts and so are very strict in their interpretation of the requirements,” Alexander Harstrick, managing partner at J2 Ventures, which backs startups in the space, told CNBC.
