Anthropic’s revenue climbed 45% in the third quarter to $16.8 billion, up from $11.6 billion in the previous quarter, according to an investor who attended a meeting with company executives in San Francisco on Wednesday ahead of its anticipated initial public offering (IPO).

The artificial intelligence company generated $4.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter, followed by $11.6 billion in the second quarter, the investor said. Anthropic also told prospective investors that it had achieved profitability on an adjusted basis in the third quarter.

The company’s expected IPO could take place before rival OpenAI goes public, potentially making Anthropic an early indicator of how investors view AI developers that are spending heavily to expand their operations. Reuters has previously reported that Anthropic’s market debut is likely to occur after the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Financial scrutiny of artificial intelligence companies has increased as the industry commits enormous sums to semiconductors, data centers and computing capacity needed to develop and operate increasingly advanced AI systems.

Anthropic is pursuing a valuation exceeding $2 trillion and is seeking to demonstrate that its rapid revenue growth can eventually offset the substantial costs associated with developing and operating its technology.

In the previous year, Anthropic’s revenue increased twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion. However, the company recorded an operating loss exceeding $8 billion, excluding write-downs of various liabilities, most of which were associated with earlier fundraising efforts, according to a Reuters investigation published last month.

Anthropic has also made long-term financial commitments totaling at least $518 billion over a decade for cloud computing, processing capacity and related infrastructure.

Established by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic has become a major player in generative AI through its Claude model family. Its growth has been supported by Alphabet’s Google and Amazon, which serve several roles as investors, computing infrastructure providers and distribution partners, while also competing in the AI market.

The company has sought to set itself apart by emphasizing AI safety. It has warned about the potential dangers of increasingly capable systems even as it competes to develop and bring more advanced models to market.

Anthropic’s own research has identified concerning conduct by its AI agents in controlled testing environments, including the disclosure of sensitive information and the sabotage of code. The company has said, however, that it has not found evidence of comparable misalignment in real-world deployments.