ChatGPT developer OpenAI announced on a blog post on Monday that it had secretly submitted a draft registration statement for an initial public offering (IPO) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Just over a week ago, its main competitor Anthropic had also applied for an IPO, marking the official start of a direct confrontation between the two leading generative AI giants in the secondary market. Currently, OpenAI's latest valuation has reached $852 billion, while Anthropic's valuation in the secondary market has recently surged to $1 trillion.

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Although OpenAI currently has about 900 million weekly active users, it still faces severe financial pressure and governance challenges. It has been revealed that OpenAI recently failed to meet new user and revenue targets, and is experiencing significant data center computing costs. According to internal projections, even if sales double, the company's investment in AI research computing power will reach $122 billion by 2028, with an estimated loss of $85 billion that year.

This means that public market investors will have to assess a company that cannot be profitable for several years. In addition, OpenAI once experienced a governance crisis when Sam Altman was removed and then reinstated, and recently faced multiple legal lawsuits involving social security and user rights. Moreover, controversies surrounding large political donations by its executives have placed it at the center of public controversy.

The recent developments of OpenAI and Anthropic, along with SpaceX, which has a valuation of $1.75 trillion, indicate that 2026 will become the most concentrated year for high-risk IPOs since the Internet bubble era. With the Trump administration taking a relatively lenient approach to technology and AI regulation, institutions that complete their IPOs first will be able to secure scarce capital in the public market earlier. This is not only a race between technology and the market but will also redefine the valuation benchmarks and the boundaries of commercial sustainability in the large model industry.