On September 14, the AI sector of the US stock market experienced a stark contrast. On one side, the semiconductor industry suffered greatly, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropping nearly 6%, as major players like Nvidia and AMD faced significant declines. On the other side, cybersecurity stocks surged, with CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks soaring over 13%, and related ETFs hitting the largest single-day gain in history.
This market divide may be related to a risky move made by Anthropic last week.
On September 8, Anthropic made a high-profile announcement to withdraw from the Information Technology Industry Council, publicly opposing Google and Nvidia, and instead supporting strict chip export controls that would harm the industry’s overseas revenue. However, they later posed for a photo with OpenAI and Gork's leader, collectively advocating for AI deceleration and safety, directly countering Jensen Huang's claim of AI harmlessness. Why would Anthropic willingly choose this narrow path of compliance just before their IPO? How did they turn high compliance costs into a driver for premium valuations of cybersecurity stocks?
1. Why does Anthropic support chip export controls?
All the hustle and bustle in the world is driven by profit, as everyone's interests are misaligned.
Giants like Nvidia and Google operate globally, with their core interests tied to overseas markets. The stricter the export controls, the higher their compliance costs and the harder it becomes to make money abroad, naturally prompting them to oppose chip export controls. However, Anthropic's strategy is completely different; it buys computing power from the market and earns revenue by selling model services. Therefore, restricting chip exports from the US won't delay its short-term profit but rather acts as a barrier, forcibly keeping the world's most advanced computing power within the US. As a leading AI laboratory in the US, Anthropic can take advantage of these scarce resources more effectively.
Aside from benefiting from underlying computing power, Anthropic's risky move serves a more urgent hidden purpose: to reconstruct trust on a political level. Previously, Anthropic was labeled a national security risk by the US Department of Defense for refusing to allow its models to be used in fully autonomous lethal weapons. Now, at a critical juncture before its IPO, by proactively supporting the legal incorporation of regulation, it is effectively submitting a significant loyalty pledge to regulators. Anthropic is using this veiled expression of loyalty to create a compliance identity that others find hard to replicate.
2. Giants hit the brakes: Why has the compliance status surged?
Compliance and the speed of AI iteration cannot coexist, but AI competitors quickly recognized the significant value of this compliance identity and collectively decided to align themselves:
On September 12, Anthropic CEO Amodei called for a slowdown in model iteration. On September 13, OpenAI CEO Altman publicly agreed and revealed that to meet AI safety and alignment requirements, OpenAI would not IPO in 2026. Musk subsequently echoed this sentiment. The three major giants broke down competitive barriers, forming a unified stance that transformed the cost of deceleration that Anthropic was to bear alone into an entry standard to be shared across the industry.
Adding to the drama was Jensen Huang's statement. At the All-In Summit on September 14, in response to a hands-free call from Trump, Huang readily aligned himself with Trump's rhetoric about "the AI danger narrative being a hoax." However, after hanging up, he shifted his tone, individually addressing AI safety concerns and openly commending the bravery of those raising safety alarms at Anthropic.
These public and behind-the-scenes statements and confrontations all indicate: in the current competitive landscape of AI, safety and compliance are no longer burdens that slow progress but instead become the most valuable moat used by giants to elevate industry thresholds and reshape power structures.
3. Logical verification: Which financial metrics can validate this "compliance transformation"?
The stock performance of the AI sector on September 14 actually concealed divergences; while semiconductors collectively fell, cloud service giants like Microsoft and Meta did not decline, closing slightly higher, confirming that the market was trading on short-term panic rather than a substantial collapse in AI demand.
To verify whether AI giants can indeed implement compliance and safety, we need to look not only at what they say but also at what they do:
In the short term, looking at computing power investment, have AI capital expenditures slowed down: Currently, we are in the earnings report season, and the latest data indicates that the combined capital expenditure guidance of major AI giants and Oracle has not been revised downward from over $830 billion, rather it has set new order highs. We will have to wait for the updated guidance next quarter, if it continues to maintain at high levels, then the rhetoric about slowing AI development will become non-existent.
In the long term, looking at safety conversion, has the new customer revenue of major security firms increased? The net new annual recurring revenue of cybersecurity concept stocks will be a direct financial metric to measure AI giants' enforcement of compliance. As per the latest financial report data, CrowdStrike's net new ARR grew by 51%, and Palo Alto's NGS ARR grew by 63%. Whether this data can continue to accelerate in subsequent financial reports will be the most reliable litmus test to verify if corporate security budgets are genuinely being realized.
Risk Warning: This article is for industry and policy research and does not constitute any investment advice, offer, or solicitation for any securities or financial products. The data referenced comes from public information and third-party compilations, which may involve differences in definitions or updates; all financial and valuation data related to Anthropic are unverified third-party information until the official prospectus is published. Event-driven market behavior may quickly reverse due to legislative progress, policy wording, and changes in liquidity; leverage can amplify losses. Please make independent decisions based on your own risk tolerance and applicable rules in your jurisdiction.
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