AI stocks rise as Anthropic nears Wall Street debut amid investor caution

Oct 26 (Reuters) - AI-linked stocks rose on Monday after Anthropic revealed the paperwork for its initial public offering, against the backdrop of growing investor unease over debt-fueled spending on infrastructure for the new technology.

Shares of Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, added nearly 3%. Microsoft and Amazon gained nearly 1% each.

A successful flotation by a pure-play AI giant such as Anthropic could reshape how markets value parts of the booming industry, including chipmakers and related infrastructure companies, analysts have said.

It could also divert capital from some tech heavyweights as investors make room in their portfolios for a new way to bet on the technology.

The industry's web of relationships adds another wrinkle, as some of the biggest technology companies are investors in both Anthropic and its chief rival, OpenAI.

Among other AI stocks, battered shares of neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius Group rose 5.7% and 2.3%, respectively, after the filing, reversing earlier losses following SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's comments.

Data center operators Applied Digital and IREN gained 1% and 3%, respectively.

Memory chipmaker Micron rose 3%, and data-storage firms Sandisk, Western Digital and Seagate added about 2.5% each.

AMD and Broadcom gained 2.5% and 3%, respectively. Zoom Communications, an early investor in Anthropic, rose 1.5%.

The broader Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up over 3%.

Focus now shifts to a potential IPO from OpenAI. But while the stakes are high, the long-term impact of the IPOs on the AI trade remains uncertain.

"Ultimately, investing in AI today involves searching for opportunity beyond the headline names," said Michael Smith, head of the growth equity team at Allspring Global Investments.

"Today, attractive investment opportunities in AI may be in small and medium-sized firms that can efficiently and quickly solve growing infrastructure concerns."

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)