Anthropic has reached an important milestone in profitability before its anticipated major initial public offering (IPO) next week. However, on Wednesday, Jim Cramer, CNBC warned that the company's future spending commitments from this cutting-edge AI laboratory may make it more challenging to maintain profitability.
“Anthropic is destined to cost a lot of money in the future, so it needs to continue to grow rapidly in order to overcome these costs and remain profitable,” said the host of “Mad Money.” “If you buy the IPO of Anthropic, that’s what you’re betting on.”
This Claude developer achieved profitability for the first time in the second quarter of 2026 under the adjusted operating scope and continued to maintain a positive figure in the third quarter. According to its IPO prospectus, Anthropic's adjusted operating revenue for the first nine months of 2026 totaled 4.08 billion US dollars. Using the calculation method of Anthropic, the adjusted operating revenue excludes equity-based compensation, non-cash charitable donations, and payments related to a settlement in a collective copyright lawsuit. If calculated according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States (GAAP), Anthropic incurred an operating loss of 1.26 billion US dollars as of the third quarter of this year.
"It is important to clarify that even if Anthropic manages to achieve profitability under this adjusted operating income framework, it is by no means a trivial achievement," said Cramer.
Another significant difference between the adjusted performance of Anthropic and the data of GAAP is reflected in net profit. Net profit is located at the bottom of the company's income statement and is also the basis for calculating earnings per share. In the first nine months of 2026, Anthropic reported a net loss of over $104 billion, while the adjusted net profit was $5.6 billion.
A large portion of this difference comes from a non-cash expense of $94 billion, which is related to the increase in value after issuing securities to partners such as Google and Amazon. Such arrangements allow Anthropic to obtain computing resources without having to pay cash immediately, helping it to retain most of the capital raised. Cramer warns not to completely ignore these expenses, stating that they reflect infrastructure costs that the company would have to pay in cash anyway.
In fact, Cramer emphasizes that investors cannot ignore the procurement commitments and lease agreements signed by Anthropic for computing infrastructure. According to the prospectus, as of September, Anthropic has committed to spending approximately $900 billion in the future, mainly for computing infrastructure.
The expenditure commitments of Anthropic include an agreement with SpaceX, with a maximum amount of up to 120.5 billion US dollars and a term extending until 2029; in addition, there are transactions with Google, Amazon, Microsoft under Alphabet, as well as other computing power providers. Approximately half of the 900 billion US dollars in commitments is expected to mature by the end of 2030. In just the coming year, there is an estimated expenditure of around 70 billion US dollars.
“To make a long story short, the computing power cost of Anthropic – its cash computing power cost – will experience explosive growth,” said Cramer.
In the roadshow materials of IPO, Anthropic estimates that costs related to computation and infrastructure will ultimately account for 45% to 50% of revenue, supporting an operating profit margin of around 35% after long-term adjustments.
The core point on Wednesday is that to achieve this profit margin target, it is necessary to rely on sustained revenue growth. On Tuesday, Cramer mentioned that Anthropic achieved a year-on-year revenue growth of 1206% in the first nine months of 2026, but the company still needs to continue to expand rapidly in order to keep up with the rising infrastructure costs.
"You have to assume that this company will continue to grow significantly—growing to annual revenues of hundreds of billions of dollars, and that quite quickly," said Cramer. "Only in that way will it all make sense."
The significance of this game is not limited to Anthropic itself. On Monday, Cramer warned that given the high dependence of many companies on the continuous spending of Anthropic, its IPO may become a key test for broader AI transactions.
As reported on Tuesday by Leslie Picker of CNBC, Anthropic is expected to set the price for IPO on November 18 and begin trading on NASDAQ on November 19.
