Morgan Stanley co-president Dan Simkowitz said the push by OpenAI and Anthropic to slow releases of the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models will not dent demand or the spending behind it.
His bank is a reported lead underwriter on Anthropic’s coming stock market listing. Simkowitz spoke to CNBC on Wednesday and declined to discuss individual deals.
AI Demand and Financing Will Keep Moving
Spending on compute and chips is not stopping, he said. Nor is the financing behind that build.
“I think the pause or the slowing of release on the frontier really doesn’t change the core dynamics,” Simkowitz said in the interview.
Demand is coming from large companies and consumers alike, according to Simkowitz. He said Morgan Stanley is scaling AI across research, cybersecurity and customer service.
Its partners include Anthropic, Google, xAI and Microsoft. Sam Altman presented to the bank’s board in May 2022, months before ChatGPT launched.
Simkowitz said he does not know when Anthropic will go public. He called the initial public offering (IPO) market ready for large deals and pointed to SpaceX.
His stated worries sit elsewhere. He named fiscal policy, $100 oil and $40 trillion of federal debt.
Morgan Stanley Advises the Companies Who Spend Big on AI
Asked whether the capital could run out, Simkowitz listed his own client book.
“We’re the advisor to Nvidia and Broadcom and Google and the and the LLMs, uh as well as some of the neo clouds. They’re all raising the capital”
Neoclouds are data center firms that rent out AI computing power. Large language models, or LLMs, are the systems behind chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude.
That list covers the chipmaker, the networking supplier, the search giant and the labs. Morgan Stanley is also among the banks reported to be leading Anthropic’s IPO, alongside Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
Anthropic was last valued at nearly $965 billion in May, and its listing has been reported for the autumn.
Simkowitz also said Alphabet and SpaceX raised close to $150 billion in equity in June.
Critics Question the Timing of the Slowdown Call
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei asked rival labs on September 12 to slow capability gains. Altman and Elon Musk backed him.
Investor Michael Burry argued two days later that the push serves the listings rather than safety. He described it as hype around the listings.
Altman has since pushed OpenAI’s own debut beyond 2026.
Simkowitz said each company will make its own timing call.
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