AI Boom Puts Ordinary Savers on the Hook

Anthropic has filed to list on the Nasdaq while reporting a first-half 2026 net loss of $80.7 billion, and Nigel Green of deVere Group says ordinary investors could end up carrying the risk if spending outruns revenue. “After this listing, the answer is the public,” Green said. The company is reportedly seeking to match or exceed SpaceX’s record-setting $75 billion IPO, at a price Green put at around $2 trillion.

That’s the bargain on offer: investors are asked to bankroll a vast expansion while the filing warns growth may slow and the company could need more money sooner than expected. Anthropic’s revenue climbed from $41 million in 2023 to $386 million in 2024 and $4.6 billion in 2025, then reached $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026, up from $1.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. The numbers are eye-catching. So is the loss.

Who Carries the Risk

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s Assistant Governor Brad Jones warned that markets had priced in year-on-year earnings growth of 45 per cent “forever” before recent pullbacks. “Far be it for me to opine on whether that's irrational or not, but clearly there was a lot of good news in the price,” he said at the AFR Super & Wealth Summit in Melbourne. Unlike the late-1990s technology boom, Jones said, markets are also seeing increased use of debt.

The exposure reaches far beyond technology investors. Australia’s superannuation sector holds more than $4.8 trillion and relies on a small group of external providers for administration and custody. An estimated 2.5 million Australians are expected to retire over the next decade, at a pace of roughly 257 people a day. Jones said funds had received net contributions of $1 billion to $2 billion each week for decades; as savings shift from accumulation to payouts, funds will have less cash to respond to market turmoil.

In 2020, pandemic market falls coincided with emergency early-release rules that forced funds to liquidate billions of dollars. Now, US stock indices have been lifted by the AI boom, leaving Australian super funds exposed to a possible downturn. AusSuper’s Shaun Manuell said he was “starting to get a little bit nervous” about a shift “from rational exuberance to slightly irrational exuberance” around AI.

Anthropic’s filing also describes dependence on cloud partners for computing capacity. The company sought more capacity than those partners were willing to provide, while the partners build competing models and could reduce, reprice or end access. Take-or-pay commitments remain due regardless of actual use and have been partly debt-funded. The filing also flags failed or underperforming training runs, possible limits to scaling, and potential liability if AI agents act autonomously or in unintended ways.

When Communities Say No

Community opposition has already interfered with the buildout. Next DC revised revenue forecasts after opposition to its Melbourne facility, while NextDC’s share price plunged 42 per cent after Melbourne residents delayed a data-centre project, according to ABC chief business correspondent Ian Verrender. Goodman Group cancelled a data centre in Sydney’s northern suburbs. A Gallup poll found 71 per cent of Americans opposed data centres, compared with 53 per cent who opposed nuclear power plants.

Those local objections matter to companies betting borrowed money on rapid construction and future sales. Verrender said continued project delays could slow AI’s rollout and undermine revenue for firms that borrowed heavily. US neocloud CoreWeave, which rents chips and computing power to AI firms, lost 36 per cent of its share value in a month amid debt concerns. The Nasdaq had its worst fortnight since April.

Firmus, an Australian neocloud company, shelved its anticipated IPO last month amid valuation concerns. Unisuper said Firmus shares were worth “closer to $1” than the $11 asking price. “The fundamentals weren't there to back it up,” the Australian Retirement Trust said. AusSuper called it “a pretty easy pass.” The proposed $44 billion IPO didn’t get the institutional buyers it sought.

Regulators Watch the Machinery

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is holding round-table discussions on the Australian Securities Exchange, private credit, fixed income, commodities and foreign exchange. Commissioner Simone Constant said the themes were resilience and transparency. She acknowledged that the regulator’s overview “would not prevent a market crash,” but could reduce the chance regulators are blindsided and improve market efficiency. That’s a promise to monitor the machinery, not a promise that the machinery won’t break.

Verrender pointed to the 2008 financial crisis, when a lack of transparency from ratings agencies, auditors and largely unregulated debt-market instruments helped trigger panic. Big technology companies initially financed AI from cash flow, then increasingly turned to debt as investment expanded into chips and data centres. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft had raised more than $US200 billion between them that year; Nvidia had raised more than $US80 billion and routinely financed data-centre firms such as Australia’s Firmus, acting as both supplier and financier. Australian superannuation funds have invested in technology and AI, delivering double-digit returns to members, Verrender wrote. If the projected sales don’t cover the debt, the public-facing promise of growth won’t decide who pays; the investments and obligations will.