ETtech Explainer: Anthropic’s rapid rise, Pentagon standoff and everything in between

Anthropic is racing towards nearly $20 billion in annual revenue, more than doubling its run rate late last year, underlining just how quickly it had grown before its Pentagon clash. The fallout with the US Department of War did little to slow its momentum. In fact, Claude’s usage and rankings surged, suggesting that many consumers approved of the company’s stance on the matter.

Anthropic’s rapid growth

The company recently surpassed $19 billion in revenue run rate, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025 and roughly $14 billion a few weeks ago, according to Bloomberg.


Strong adoption of Anthropic’s AI models and products, including its coding tool Claude Code, has been the main driver of this growth. The company is now valued at $380 billion.

Data from digital intelligence platform SimilarWeb shows that Claude has overtaken rivals Grok and DeepSeek in daily website visits for the first time in 2026. For most of January and early February, Grok and DeepSeek were drawing between 9 and 11 million visits per day, while Claude trailed at 4 to 7 million.

However, this gap narrowed sharply around mid-February, coinciding with Anthropic’s dispute with the US government becoming public. Soon, Claude’s daily visits surged, reaching nearly 14 million by the end of February, leaving both Grok and DeepSeek behind.

On Saturday, Claude also climbed to the number one spot in the free app rankings on the US Apple App Store, overtaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Data from digital market intelligence platform Sensor Tower shows that at the end of January, Claude ranked just outside the top 100. However, a Super Bowl advertisement mocking ChatGPT lifted it into the top 10 by mid-February. During the standoff with the Pentagon, it continued to rise, eventually reaching the top spot.

Anthropic-Pentagon dispute

After Anthropic demanded safeguards to prevent the US Department of War from using its AI systems for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using its products. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth went further, declaring Anthropic a 'supply-chain risk': a label usually reserved for companies from countries the US sees as adversaries.

This designation was intended to block not only government deals but also those with other companies.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called the move “retaliatory and punitive”. He stressed that the company would challenge the designation in court if any such formal steps are taken by the government.

Meanwhile, OpenAI struck its own deal with the Pentagon for use of its AI models in classified environments. What this agreement ultimately leads to remains to be seen.

Anthropic in the headlines

This year saw Anthropic consistently making headlines, especially over the past weeks. Indian IT stocks fell sharply in February, partly due to concerns about disruption from the AI startup.

It started with the launch of Claude Cowork plug-ins, which automate tasks in legal, sales, marketing, and data analysis, triggering a sharp sell-off on Wall Street on February 3. Investors worried that AI was increasing competition for traditional software companies.

The decline continued on Dalal Street, with the Nifty IT index dropping 6% as stocks of major companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, LTI Mindtree, Infosys, and others fell by up to 8%.

On February 18, the index fell further after Anthropic released new web search and web fetch tools. Global markets also reacted.

On February 24, IBM shares plunged more than 13%, marking its steepest single-day drop in over 25 years. The fall followed Anthropic’s announcement that Claude Code could modernise a legacy programming language running on IBM systems.

ET reported that Anthropic, valued at $380 billion, now exceeds the combined market capitalisation of India’s top listed IT companies. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra together have a market value of around $240 billion, highlighting Anthropic’s enormous scale.

Then, The Wall Street Journal reported that Claude was used in the US military’s operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The AI tool was deployed through Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir Technologies, which provides platforms widely used by the Defense Department and federal law enforcement.

Following this, came the feud with the Pentagon. Now, what remains to be seen is how this dispute impacts Anthropic’s business.