For today’s AI Minute, I want to look at one of the biggest financial stories on Wall Street right now—and explain why it matters right here in the Shenandoah Valley.

Next week, Anthropic—the artificial intelligence company behind the AI assistant Claude—is scheduled to go public in what could be one of the largest IPOs in history. Earlier this week, Anthropic set an initial share price range of $70 to $78, valuing the company at roughly $1.4 trillion. But investor appetite has been so strong—with major tech giants lining up to buy tens of billions of dollars in shares—that bankers have already been eyeing a price increase before trading even begins.

I recently attended a Morningstar briefing where analysts laid out the case for why Anthropic may actually worth even more: $1.7 trillion. Morningstar gave a range from a high of $3 trillion to a bear case of $500 billion.

Their justification comes down to anticipated corporate adoption, and isn’t based on hype. Nearly 12,000 businesses are already spending over $100,000 a year on Anthropic’s tools, driving annualized revenue into the tens of billions of dollars with nearly 50 percent annual growth projected over the next five years.

So, what does a $1.7 trillion Silicon Valley company have to do with the Shenandoah Valley? In a word: infrastructure.

To run these AI models, Anthropic has committed more than $900 billion to computing power and data centers over the next ten years. Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley” is running out of land and electrical capacity, and that spillover is coming directly over the Blue Ridge into Frederick, Shenandoah, Rockingham, and Augusta counties. We’ve already experienced the push back against data centers here, but the surrounding counties, and West Virginia, will potentially be in play. And that means potential tax revenue and construction jobs which can spill over into Frederick/Winchester but it also puts indirect pressure on our electric grid, water resources, and rural farmland.

As Rotarians and local leaders, understanding the scale of the money behind AI helps us ask smarter questions about how our Valley grows in the years ahead.