The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Anthropic, the artificial-intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, is preparing for one of the biggest initial public offerings in history, and Canadian retail investors have a chance to buy shares before they begin trading on the stock market. The Globe's Meera Raman and Andrew Galbraith write that the company plans to set aside up to 20 per cent of the shares offered in its IPO for retail investors in select markets, a larger allocation than is typical for major U.S. offerings where shares have historically gone primarily to institutional investors and wealthy clients. At the same time, although Anthropic's IPO could be worth as much as $64.35-billion (U.S.), that represents only a fraction of the company's estimated $1.4-trillion (U.S.) valuation. Existing shareholders are expected to retain about 91 per cent of the company's outstanding shares after the IPO and a separate private placement. For retail investors, getting access to an offering doesn't guarantee investors will receive shares. In Canada, six capital market players are expected to participate in the retail offering: BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, TD and Wealthsimple.