Amazon and Alphabet Give Investors a Backdoor into Anthropic

Anthropic, a company behind the Claude AI models, is set to go public at a valuation near $1 trillion. However, most investors can't buy into it yet. Two tech giants, Amazon and Alphabet, already own significant stakes in Anthropic. With their large market caps and dominant positions in cloud computing, e-commerce, and advertising, buying shares of these companies provides indirect exposure to Anthropic.

Amazon is the largest corporate backer of Anthropic, committing $33 billion with a pledge to invest tens of billions more, giving it a stake worth over $100 billion. Alphabet owns approximately 14% of Anthropic, valued at around $135 billion. Both companies have a vested interest in Anthropic's success, as they are also among the AI lab's biggest customers.

The catch is that these stakes are still modest compared to the overall size of Amazon and Alphabet. As such, investors shouldn't expect an overnight transformation in either stock due to Anthropic's IPO. Some profit from the paper value of their stakes, which can reverse if sentiment sours.