Amid the explosive ascent of artificial intelligence and its rapidly expanding ability to automate large parts IT services business, Anthropic, now valued at about $380 billion, has stormed to the forefront of the global tech race, eclipsing the combined market capitalisation of India’s listed IT companies. To put that into perspective, industry bellwethers Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra together command a market value of roughly $240 billion.

What makes the story even more striking is the speed of its rise. Anthropic is just five years old, having been founded in 2021, yet it has already emerged as one of the most valuable players in the artificial intelligence race. In February 2026, the company raised $30 billion in its latest funding round, more than doubling the Claude chatbot maker’s valuation to $380 billion and underscoring the enormous investor appetite for both the startup and the broader AI industry.

Anthropic positions itself as an AI safety and research company focused on building reliable, interpretable and steerable AI systems. A key differentiator has been its strong emphasis on coding-focused models, with Claude Code gaining significant traction among developers and helping the company carve out an edge in the fast-growing enterprise AI market.

The rapid progress of AI, and particularly Anthropic’s latest tools, has rattled Indian technology stocks. The selloff has been severe, with the Nifty IT falling about 21% in February alone, marking its worst monthly decline since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Pressure on IT shares had already been building earlier in the month after Anthropic unveiled a new AI product designed to automate a wide range of professional tasks, reigniting concerns that artificial intelligence could chip away at the profitability and long-standing competitive moats of traditional IT services companies.

The company, which develops the Claude chatbot, said the product can automate several legal functions, including contract reviews, non-disclosure agreement triage, compliance workflows, legal brief preparation, and standardized responses. At the center of the market, nervousness is that AI could fundamentally reshape the competitive landscape for software and IT services firms, potentially weakening both profitability and market positioning.

Industries once considered relatively insulated from AI disruption — including legal services, data analytics, and customer support — are now increasingly in focus. If AI is able to automate these functions, the large IT services industry built around delivering them could face significant challenges. Anthropic, backed by Google and Amazon, has rapidly expanded its revenue base, saying its current run-rate revenue has reached $14 billion.For Claude Code alone, the run-rate revenue has climbed to more than $2.5 billion, more than doubling since the beginning of 2026. Business subscriptions for Claude Code have quadrupled since the start of the year, with enterprise usage now accounting for over half of the product’s total revenue, the company said.

Anthropic has also stepped up its push into enterprise deals with offerings such as its Claude Cowork AI agent, designed to carry out computer-based tasks for white-collar workers.

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