Here is a sentence that would have sounded impossible a year ago: one of the world's most celebrated AI companies could go public carrying a "junk" credit rating. According to a Financial Times report, Blackstone — the anchor investor in a recent $63 billion deal financing Anthropic's chips — has told investors in that deal that it expects credit agencies to rate Anthropic in the double-B range after its IPO. Double-B is the top tier of junk grade: respectable for a young company, but officially "speculative".
Why the downgrade in expectations?
The striking part is the reversal. Blackstone had previously expected Anthropic to earn an investment-grade rating before 2027. What changed is the scale of Anthropic's spending. Over the past twelve months the lab has signed enormous compute deals, and that mountain of future costs is making some investors nervous — even as revenue grows fast.
Anthropic officially filed to go public earlier this week. Neither Anthropic nor Blackstone commented on the report.
What a junk rating would actually mean
First, honesty: this is a forecast from an investor, not a rating that any agency has actually assigned. But if it proves right, the consequences are practical. A junk rating makes borrowing more expensive and some conservative funds simply cannot buy the debt. For a company funding data centres and chip deals worth tens of billions, even a small difference in borrowing costs is real money.
Zoom out and this is the same story echoing across the whole AI industry this week: the technology is booming, but the bill has become so large that even the strongest names are being priced like risky bets. The IPO itself will be the real test — if public investors queue up anyway, the rating debate becomes a footnote.
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Source: Financial Times reporting, via TechCrunch.
