Anthropic and OpenAI are confronting a sustainability test as they prepare for public-market scrutiny, with investors focused on whether rapid revenue growth can continue while computing and infrastructure costs surge. Anthropic’s annualized revenue reached $65 billion by July, and investors expect it to exceed $120 billion by year-end, but revenue concentration among large corporations and cloud partners raises questions about durability. OpenAI faces a sharper cash-burn challenge: internal projections obtained by the Financial Times show $856 billion in capital expenditures for AI operations and data centers through 2030, a $278 billion free-cash-flow deficit in 2030 and depletion of $122 billion in investment by 2028. Competition from OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra, Chinese models including DeepSeek and Moonshot, and Meta Platforms’ Llama is also putting pressure on prices and market share. Anthropic has moved its anticipated IPO from October to November while considering a valuation of as much as $2 trillion and proceeds of up to $100 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has delayed an IPO to next year, citing AI safety concerns, while the company seeks additional financing at a valuation of $1.2 trillion. Crypto derivatives linked to the possible Anthropic listing have accumulated about $79.27 million in open interest, although they do not represent Anthropic shares.