According to a Financial Times report, Anthropic is expected to receive a high “junk” credit rating from credit rating agencies following its initial public offering. The FT says Blackstone, the investment giant and anchor investor in a recent $63 billion deal to finance Anthropic‘s chips, told investors it now expects the AI lab to get a double B range rating — the top tier of speculative “junk” grade. That reverses Blackstone‘s earlier expectation that Anthropic would receive an investment-grade rating before 2027. TechCrunch reached out to Anthropic and Blackstone, but both declined to comment.

Blackstone‘s forecast is just a prediction, but a high junk rating would make it more difficult and costlier for Anthropic to raise money to keep funding its massive spending. The lab has been on a spending spree over the past 12 months, racking up large compute power deals that have worried investors. Anthropic officially filed to go public earlier this week, kicking off speculation about how the large IPO would affect the broader AI industry.