A filing in San Francisco moves Seoul and Tokyo
Anthropic, the San Francisco company behind the Claude models, submitted its S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The document showed first-half revenue of $16.3 billion, compared with $1.2 billion a year earlier. It also recorded an operating loss of $693 million, smaller than the prior year's $2.1 billion, alongside a net loss of $80.7 billion. Anthropic intends to list Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. Press reports have put the targeted valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, a range that would place the offering among the biggest ever recorded.[S1]
The disclosure fed straight into Asian trading on Tuesday. South Korea's KOSPI climbed 3.1%, helped by third-quarter economic figures showing 3.4% growth from a year earlier. Samsung Electronics advanced 4.2% and SK Hynix 5.2%. The gain broke a run of sharp losses: the KOSPI has shed 18.2% over the past month. In Tokyo the Nikkei 225 added 1.7%, SoftBank rose 5.0% and chip-testing equipment maker Advantest gained almost 9%.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S7][S8]
Why chipmakers took the cue
Semiconductor producers in Japan and South Korea have been under pressure from worries that large technology firms might slow their spending on artificial intelligence. A well-received Anthropic offering would ease those fears. Gary Ng, a senior Asia Pacific economist at Natixis, said that if Anthropic's prospects look convincing on profitability, heavier investment in AI infrastructure could mean more orders and firmer prices for the region's chip supply chains.[S1]
Other regional benchmarks were mixed. Singapore's Straits Times Index slipped 0.1%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4% and India's Nifty 50 edged up 0.1%.[S1]
China sits out the rally
Chinese equities did not share in the optimism. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 0.7% and the mainland CSI 300 fell 1.3%. Technology names fared no better: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation declined 1.3%, robotics company Unitree dropped 4.8% and AI processor designer Cambricon slid 5.7%. The exception was Z.ai, developer of the GLM model family, which gained 8.9%.[S1]
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis, attributed the muted Chinese reaction to the fact that Hong Kong and mainland markets lie outside the main U.S. AI supply chain. Export restrictions keep the most advanced chips out of Chinese hands, she added, and users there can already choose cheaper domestic models such as those from DeepSeek.[S1]
