Artificial-intelligence start-up Anthropic is close to securing between $3 billion and $5 billion in new capital in a round led by Iconiq Capital that would value the company at roughly $170 billion, according to multiple reports including Bloomberg, the Financial Times and CNBC. The transaction could be completed within weeks and may include co-lead participation from sovereign investors such as Qatar’s QIA and Singapore’s GIC, the reports said. A $170 billion price tag would represent a jump of about $109 billion since March, when Anthropic raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation. The prospective financing underscores the fierce investor demand for large language-model developers as they race OpenAI, Google, xAI and others to build ever more capable systems. Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Google, has recently surpassed $5 billion in annual recurring revenue and projects that figure could reach $9 billion by year-end, according to a memo cited by tech reporters. Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei told staff the company is reconsidering its earlier reluctance to accept Middle-Eastern money because the capital required to remain on the AI frontier is “substantially higher” than anticipated.