Damac's Sajwani Says Anthropic Stake Earned Him as Much as 30 Years in Business

"What I made in 30 years, I made from Anthropic in less than two years," Sajwani said at Bloomberg Invest Dubai, according to Entrepreneur Middle East. He said he invested when Anthropic was valued at $18 billion. "At one point, a few weeks ago, there was a US$2 trillion valuation, but still, I'm happy with $1.4 trillion," he said. He did not disclose the size of his stake.

The remarks show how much Gulf private capital has ridden the rise in AI valuations. Anthropic is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Thursday, November 19, at an estimated valuation of between $1.26 trillion and $1.41 trillion, the publication reported.

Sajwani said DAMAC Capital, the group's investment arm, holds stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and more than 30 other companies. "In just three companies, Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX, we're making huge money," he said. He said he opened a Silicon Valley office in 1998 and 1999, lost a lot of money and closed it, then returned to technology investing about 12 years ago.

He also spoke about DAMAC Digital, the data centre business launched in 2021. He said it now operates in 13 countries and that five global hyperscalers have signed partnership agreements with it. It focuses on mostly liquid-cooled sites of 100MW and above designed for AI chips.

Sajwani said data centre building costs have risen by about 30% over the past couple of years and could climb another 20% to 30%. He expects US rules on data centres and the environment to tighten after the midterm elections, shrinking supply, so DAMAC is looking abroad. "We are already in serious negotiations to purchase land in the UK and Australia," he said.

He said rising costs worry him less than delays in the supply chain, because as a developer he passes higher costs on to hyperscalers. Sajwani pledged $20 billion for US data centres in January 2025, to be deployed over four to five years across eight states.