Anthropic’s accelerated push toward a late-2026 IPO underpins the 97.2% market-implied probability against an acquisition before 2027. The company confidentially filed its S-1 in June, raised $65 billion in May at a $965 billion valuation, and recently walked away from a potential $6 billion Decart AI deal to preserve clean financials for public markets. Founders are implementing dual-class structures to retain voting control post-listing, while securing hundreds of billions in non-cancelable compute commitments from Amazon, Google, and others that reinforce its independent scale. Traders see these steps as locking in a standalone path similar to recent high-profile tech debuts. A sudden regulatory block on the IPO or an outsized strategic bid could still shift odds, though neither appears imminent given current momentum.