There is one caveat that this is the first to file confidentially. There may be delays with twists and turns along the way. But who will price their IPO first is going to be a drama to come. On filing first and getting going with regulatory approval, being the first one out does have the advantage of grabbing the headlines. You get the attention, you get both investors and readers following you very closely. There's only a limited pool of money in the world, despite the seemingly bottomless appetite for AI. Investors will go perhaps to the first one to file and price their IPO will get a larger share than the second.

There's the old expression, long necks are for chopping. Anthropic is the first one to put their neck out there. They are going to be disclosing their financials first, dealing with regulators first on topics, and AI is not a simple industry to regulate from a technical standpoint, but also the politics of it in the United States are increasingly interesting. This is going to be a real test of whether they can proceed without hiccups along the way. It is possible if OpenAI does hold back and does go second, they get the advantage of seeing what happens to Anthropic and learn from its experience.

It is a great year to be an IPO reporter. This year before SpaceX, before OpenAI, before Anthropic, you've already got $53 billion raised on US exchanges. Compare that to last year, and this is all of last year. Keep in mind, we are not even at the halfway point. It was $78 billion or so. If you throw in perhaps $75 billion for SpaceX, multiple tens of billions for OpenAI and Anthropic, you are going to approach the all-time record right there with $338 billion in 2021.

Google Alphabet is going back to get equity, which is not that common for a company that size to do a lot of CapEx spending. That once again shows the almost insatiable demand for everything AI and related data centers and of course the energy to fuel them. The Berkshire component is very interesting. They are putting $10 billion of the $80 billion. Berkshire is under new management, it is the post Warren Buffett era. One thing I always remember that Warren Buffett said, don't invest in things you can't understand. Apparently, Berkshire believes it understands AI now and is ready to move ahead under Greg Abel.