The American artificial intelligence company OpenAI has confidentially filed documents for an initial public offering (IPO), preparing for one of the most anticipated stock market debuts in years, YahooFinance reports.
The company stated that it has not yet decided on a specific timeline and that it may take some time, 'because there are things we want to do that are probably easier as a private company.'
In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion after a funding round that gave the company a market valuation of $852 billion.
The announcement of the IPO sets the stage for a confrontation with AI competitor Anthropic, which confidentially filed for its own IPO last week. Anthropic was last valued at $965 billion.
OpenAI's filing comes just weeks after CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman scored a legal victory against former colleague and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk in his lawsuit against the duo. Musk accused Altman and Brockman of unfairly enriching themselves by turning the former nonprofit into a for-profit business.
But a jury in California found that Musk filed his claim after the statute of limitations had expired. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California accepted the jury's verdict, ruling against Musk.
In a post on social media X, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX stated that he would appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, describing the outcome as a 'technical calendar detail' rather than a decision on the merits of the case.
OpenAI's victory was the last major obstacle to the company going public.
The IPO could prove to be an unexpected success for Microsoft, one of OpenAI's largest investors. In October, the companies amended the terms of their existing partnership, allowing the ChatGPT developer to transition to a for-profit organization.
Under the terms of that deal, Microsoft received 27% of OpenAI Group PBC, valued at $135 billion at the time, while OpenAI's nonprofit entity received a $130 billion stake in the for-profit organization.
But relations between the two companies have soured since Microsoft invested its initial $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019. Reports indicate that the Windows maker will invest over $13 billion in the company, with Microsoft receiving exclusive access to OpenAI's intellectual property and models.
The two companies continued to clash over issues with Microsoft's computing capacity, on which OpenAI relied to expand its user base and to train and run newer, more powerful AI models.
In April, the companies again amended their agreement, allowing OpenAI to license its intellectual property and models to other cloud businesses.
OpenAI still has much work ahead. The company is spending money as it continues to build the capacity of its data centers, and Wall Street has repeatedly raised questions about how it will pay for its efforts in the long term.
