OpenAI Quietly Files for IPO Just Days After Anthropic
OpenAI submitted a confidential SEC filing to go public, escalating its capital race with Anthropic as both chase trillion-dollar valuations.
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI's confidential S-1 sets up a direct race with Anthropic over which AI firm lists first.
- A public offering would supply billions in capital to offset compute costs exceeding $100 billion a year.
- Quarterly disclosures after listing will finally expose the economics behind both AI companies.
OpenAI revealed plans on Monday to sell shares to the public through a US stock listing. The move escalates an intensifying investment race with its rival Anthropic.
The maker of ChatGPT said it filed a confidential S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the company, it announced the step early because it expected the filing to leak.
OpenAI has not set a date or offer price for the initial public offering. The company said timing may be a while because some goals are easier to pursue while private.
The filing arrives exactly one week after Anthropic announced its own plan to go public. Both firms now compete over who debuts on the public market first.
According to the BBC, OpenAI's most recent private valuation reached $852 billion. Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, was last valued at $965 billion.
The two companies have been fierce rivals since Dario Amodei co-founded Anthropic five years ago. He left OpenAI after disagreements with chief executive Sam Altman, per the BBC.
Going public would give each firm billions of dollars in fresh capital. That money helps cover the heavy cost of compute, the processing power needed to train AI models.
According to the BBC, OpenAI's compute costs are estimated at over $100 billion a year. Its actual revenue remains only a fraction of that figure.
Engadget reported that OpenAI recorded $25 billion in annualized revenue as of late February. The same report cited a projected burn of up to $115 billion through 2029.
A recent funding round saw NVIDIA and Amazon pour an additional $122 billion into OpenAI, per Engadget. That round helped push its valuation to the $852 billion mark.
OpenAI also faces strong pressure from Google in the contest for the best model. Engadget noted that Google caught up after launching Gemini 3 Pro last November.
Anthropic told investors it expects to turn a profit in the first half of this year. The company said sales of its Claude product and related services have grown significantly, according to the BBC.
Once public, each company must share quarterly accounts of its business performance. That disclosure will give analysts a clearer view of the economics behind these AI firms.
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