The Anthropic logo displayed on the stage during the company's Builder Summit in Bengaluru, India, on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. Photographer: Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Anthropic is zeroing in on a $1 trillion 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 spear,"  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…