AI Markets: Anthropic swings big, SB Energy files for IPO, Unitree tumbles

Anthropic follows a model launch with a $35 billion cloud megadeal, just weeks before an IPO that could value it at up to $2 trillion. Nvidia and OpenAI’s energy partner files its own IPO paperwork, while the speculative frenzy around Chinese robot maker Unitree fades as fast as it flared up.

Anthropic beefs up its IPO pitch: a new model and a $35 billion cloud megadeal

Just weeks before an IPO that could value it at up to $2 trillion, Anthropic rolled out a new model and a giant cloud contract back to back on September 1. That should reassure future investors, but it also reignites a debate that already has Wall Street worried.

Key points:

  • Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, stronger at coding and science and cheaper to run
  • The day before, the company signed a $35 billion cloud contract with Lambda, an Nvidia-backed provider
  • The deal involves four players (Nvidia, developer Hut 8, Lambda and Anthropic) around a data center in Texas
  • This kind of arrangement revives criticism of “circular financing” in the AI ecosystem

A new model built for the pre-IPO stretch

Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 are Anthropic’s new generation of models. On a scientific reasoning test (Terminal-Bench-Science), Fable 5.1 more than doubles the previous version’s score, and it also makes clear gains in coding. Mythos 5.1, reserved for a limited number of approved research organizations, is billed as the model with the most advanced cybersecurity capabilities the company has ever released, while Fable 5.1 stays restricted on those sensitive uses. Anthropic also promises lower usage costs, with savings of up to 45% for some AI agent applications. The timing is no accident: Anthropic is preparing to publish its IPO filing after Labor Day, with a listing still targeted for late September or October. Showing off a model that improves fast and costs less is a powerful argument for investors who are about to value the company on revenue projections out to 2028.

The “circular financing” debate, Anthropic edition

The same day, Anthropic confirmed a $35 billion cloud contract with Lambda covering compute capacity at a data center that Hut 8 (a former bitcoin miner turned AI player) is building in Texas. Here’s how it works: Nvidia leases the site from Hut 8, Lambda installs chips bought from Nvidia there, then resells that compute capacity to Anthropic. So Nvidia ends up as chip supplier, site leaseholder and, indirectly, a beneficiary of the revenue Anthropic will generate by using those chips. That’s exactly the mechanism the industry’s skeptics criticize: they see money looping between the same big players rather than genuinely new demand. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress has publicly acknowledged the criticism, arguing that its compute capacity remains “redeployable” to other customers if needed. This contract comes on top of a $45 billion deal Anthropic already signed with another provider, Nscale. For a European investor, these deals remain out of direct reach: neither Anthropic (still private) nor Lambda nor Hut 8 (listed in New York) is eligible for the PEA. They are a reminder that the AI race rests on increasingly intertwined financing chains, a risk factor Anthropic’s IPO prospectus will very likely have to spell out.

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SB Energy, the data center builder for Nvidia and OpenAI, targets more than $50 billion on the stock market

After Unitree in August, another pillar of the AI supply chain is going before public market investors. SB Energy, the SoftBank subsidiary building OpenAI’s mega data center in Ohio, filed its IPO paperwork in New York on September 1.

Key points:

  • SB Energy is targeting a valuation of more than $50 billion and a Nasdaq listing under the ticker SBE
  • Its order backlog stands at about $439 billion, for nearly 9 gigawatts of contracted capacity
  • Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in the offering, and OpenAI receives warrants worth about $5.5 billion
  • The company reports a net loss of $3.21 billion for the first half of 2026, and has no data center in operation yet

The Nvidia-OpenAI-SoftBank trio tries its luck on the stock market

SB Energy is the entity running, among other things, construction of the “PORTS-Pike” campus in Ohio, the site on a former uranium enrichment plant that is leased to OpenAI and for which Nvidia agreed this summer to guarantee up to $105 billion in lease commitments. The IPO filing confirms the scale of the project: nearly 9 gigawatts of capacity contracted or under construction, including more than 8 gigawatts for the Ohio campus alone, plus a 1.2-gigawatt Texas site dedicated to OpenAI. Nvidia is committing to invest $1.5 billion at the IPO price, while OpenAI, already a shareholder to the tune of $500 million through the Stargate program, also receives warrants valued at about $5.5 billion. The offering is being led by a syndicate of top-tier banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Mizuho), a sign that Wall Street wants its share of this new wave of AI infrastructure IPOs, after SpaceX in June and Unitree in August.

Dependence on a single customer, spelled out in black and white

What this filing mostly reveals is the size of the bet. SB Energy itself writes in its prospectus that it is “substantially dependent” on OpenAI, which is listed as a customer on three of its campuses, and acknowledges that it in turn depends on Nvidia for the chip supply at the Ohio site. Financially, first-half revenue jumped 66% to $138.7 million, but the net loss ballooned to $3.21 billion (versus $215.5 million a year earlier) and no data center is operational yet: current revenue comes mostly from solar and energy storage businesses, not yet from AI compute. In other words, investors are being asked to pay today for the promise of future revenue, based on an order backlog already measured in the hundreds of billions. For a European saver, access remains indirect: SB Energy will seek a US listing outside the PEA, like SpaceX or Unitree, and exposure will only be possible through a brokerage account or sector funds dedicated to AI infrastructure.

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SpaceX scrambles to overhaul the leadership of its AI data centers

In August, Elon Musk was touting how much better his rocket engineers were at building AI data centers, comparing SpaceX to a pro baseball team taking on an amateur club. Three weeks later, the company quietly replaced the division’s leadership after engineering missteps at its sites in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Key points:

  • SpaceX has replaced several managers in its AI data center division with executives from its rocket and Starlink programs
  • News outlet The Information reports civil design problems at the Memphis (Tennessee) and Mississippi sites
  • Some facilities reportedly ran for months without backup cooling or backup power, creating a risk of outages
  • The timeline for future sites, notably in Texas, is becoming less certain

When the rocket builders take back control of the data centers

According to The Information, SpaceX has put Wesley Salandro, former vice president of production for the Falcon and Dragon rockets, and Logan McConnell, who led product support at the Starbase launch site, in charge of its AI infrastructure. A senior Starlink executive, Michael Nicolls, has also been placed in charge of overseeing xAI. These arrivals follow the departure, in late July, of several longtime leaders of SpaceXAI’s physical infrastructure, including Jake Palmer, who ran that side of the business. The reason given is concrete: in the rush to build its first sites quickly, the company reportedly brought facilities online without the usual backup systems (cooling, power), exposing them to a real risk of outages. It’s a classic civil engineering problem, not a chip or software issue, but it goes straight to the reliability of an asset that SpaceX presents as a major growth driver.

An execution signal to watch before the next steps

The shake-up comes as data centers take up a growing share of SpaceX’s stock market story: the AI segment had already generated $2.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter, growing fast, driven by compute capacity leasing contracts with Anthropic and Google. Musk’s bet is to reuse SpaceX’s operational rigor, honed on the extreme standards of aerospace, to catch up with competitors that are better established in data centers. This shake-up shows the transition hasn’t gone off without a hitch, and that it adds uncertainty to the timeline for upcoming sites, notably the one planned in Texas. For investors following SPCX, listed on the Nasdaq and outside the PEA, this kind of execution signal deserves as much attention as the revenue figures: a company that promises to generate most of its future value through AI also has to prove it can build the infrastructure that goes with it, on the timelines it announces.

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Unitree loses half its value: China’s robot fever breaks

On August 19, shares of Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree soared 629% in their Shanghai stock market debut. Two weeks later, the stock has given back more than half of that gain, reviving doubts about the sector’s economic footing.

Key points:

  • Unitree shares fell to 546.51 yuan on September 2, more than 50% below the intraday high of 1,100 yuan reached on their first day of trading
  • The group’s adjusted net profit had already dropped 53% in the first quarter of 2026, to about $6 million
  • Reuters and the South China Morning Post point to price distortion tied to Chinese restrictions on short selling
  • The decline confirms the trend already seen in late August, when the stock had lost about a quarter of its post-IPO value

From stock market fireworks to free fall

Unitree’s stock market debut was one of the most talked-about events of the summer in Chinese markets: an institutional order book oversubscribed more than 2,700 times, a retail tranche oversubscribed more than 8,000 times, and a 629% surge on day one, pushing its valuation above 340 billion yuan (about $51 billion). Since then, the correction has only picked up speed: after a drop of about a quarter already reported in late August, the stock kept falling in early September, losing more than half its peak value. The move illustrates a classic pattern after a hot IPO in China: the local listing mechanism, combined with restrictions that limit short selling, keeps prices from adjusting quickly in either direction, which mechanically amplifies excesses both ways.

What the correction says about the sector

Beyond the market mechanics, the drop revives a deeper doubt about fundamentals. Unitree’s adjusted net profit fell 53% in the first quarter of 2026, to about 40 million yuan ($6 million), as research and development spending rose sharply. That figure confirms a finding already documented in late August: a large share of the sector’s “humanoid” revenue in China still comes from research and education rather than profitable industrial uses. For a European investor, Unitree isn’t directly accessible through a PEA anyway (shares listed in Shanghai, limited to a brokerage account), with indirect exposure going through specialized robotics UCITS ETFs such as KOID, which heavily dilute this kind of single-stock move. Above all, Unitree’s deflation is a reminder that the stock market excitement around Chinese humanoid robotics keeps running faster than proof of a profitable business model.

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Edition prepared by our monitoring agent (data and sources as of Wednesday, September 2, 2026), reviewed under our editorial policy. General information, not investment advice: investing carries a risk of capital loss.