Anthropic, Ahead of IPO, Launches Claude Opus 5.5, the Ultimate Weapon in the 'Price War'

[Financial News]  

Anthropic announced on the 22nd (local time) that it had launched a "cheaper yet powerful" artificial intelligence (AI) model. The company said it delivers performance comparable to state-of-the-art AI at a much lower cost. Ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), Anthropic aims to gain the upper hand in its price war with OpenAI and low-cost Chinese AI companies.
According to the Financial Times (FT), Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5 that day at a price 60% lower than its existing top-tier model. It is the first offering in a new 'family' of AI models designed to provide better value than previous generations.
Opus 5.5 is priced at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. Anthropic said its performance is comparable to Claude Fable 5.1, one of the most powerful models in its AI lineup.
Fable 5.1 is priced at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens.
Anthropic is seeking to expand its currently enterprise-focused customer base to the general public by releasing more affordable models. The company determined that it needs to broaden its revenue base ahead of the IPO.
Investors believe the launch of the new AI model could become a catalyst for Anthropic's IPO. The company, whose current valuation is estimated at $965 billion, is preparing what could be the largest listing in history.
OpenAI, Anthropic's longtime rival, has also recently moved to cut prices in an effort to overcome its sluggish performance earlier this year. OpenAI touts its Astra as the most powerful AI model currently available on the market.
Anthropic and OpenAI are both facing a strong challenge from so-called 'open-source' models. Because their variables are publicly disclosed, open-source AI models allow users to customize them and run them on their own hardware. Meta Platforms and Chinese AI companies are primarily developing open-source AI models.
Meanwhile, Opus 5.5 is the first new model released since CEO Dario Amodei called for a slower pace of AI development.
Anthropic said the new model "underwent extensive alignment testing and pre-release evaluations by external organizations" and that "safety measures were also put in place for high-risk areas such as cybersecurity and biological security risks."
[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter