Dan Ives: Anthropic’s growth is 'just the tip of the sphere' for AI rally

Anthropic is zeroing in on a $1trillion valuation after another successful funding round — but investor demand for AI companies is just getting started, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

Ives told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Friday that "for the first time in 30 years, the U.S. is ahead of China" on technology.

He said that Anthropic's latest valuation of $965 billion after securing $65bn in funding on Thursday is "just the tip of the sphere,"  and investors should turn their attention to data layer companies, such as Snowflake, Datadog and InnoData. 

"Our view is the second, third, fourth derivative, just like we saw this week with Snowflake and Dell, is showing where the spending is," he added. 

Ives' comments form part of a broader prediction for the Nasdaq to top 30,000 points by 2027, reiterating his call from earlier interviews with CNBC.

Ives is forecasting a "historic" period in the history of Wall Street ahead of a raft of mega-IPOs on the docket for 2026, including the potential flotations of SpaceX, Anthropic and Open AI. 

"They're really the three pillars of the fourth industrial revolution," he said. "Right now, in terms of Anthropic, it's the best model in the world, and I don't think there's a dispute there. 

"It's going to put more pressure on Open AI, which is foundational to the AI revolution."

Other analysts have warned that this seismic set of public offerings could signal the top of the market, and drew parallels with the late-1990s dot-com bubble.

SpaceX's hotly anticipated IPO, confirmed in a regulatory filing on Thursday and expected on June 12, could mark the largest float in history. Elon Musk's firm is understood to be targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion on the Nasdaq. OpenAI and Anthropic have also announced their intentions to go public later this year. 

All three companies are yet to generate an annual profit, though Anthropic is expected to post its first-ever profitable quarter in its upcoming earnings.

"I see it as a market top," John Blank, chief equity strategist at Zacks, told CNBC's Squawk Box Europe on Thursday. 

"Everybody knows the top is pretty close to being around and usually it is advertised by these giant IPOs. Back in 1999, we saw the same kind of thing where people were just rushing to get these IPOs out."

Nonetheless Ives is sticking by his call that the market resembles 1997, not 1999, in terms of bubble risk.