Anthropic’s accelerated push toward a record IPO in November 2026 underpins the overwhelming market consensus against an acquisition before 2027. The company filed its prospectus, targets a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, and recently closed a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, signaling strong independent momentum backed by hyperscalers and institutional investors. Its public-benefit corporation structure, focus on frontier large language model development, and recent strategic acquisitions of smaller AI tooling firms further reinforce a standalone trajectory. While an unexpected regulatory delay to the IPO or a last-minute strategic bid from a major cloud partner could theoretically intervene, the compressed timeline and capital-raising momentum make such shifts improbable within the remaining months of 2026.