[Reuters/Yonhap]
[Reuters/Yonhap]

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has formally begun its IPO process, joining a wave of major AI firms racing toward public markets.

OpenAI submitted a confidential IPO filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.

In a statement, the company said it had not set a timeline and that the process could take time, as there are things it can more easily accomplish as a private company.

"But given the complex trade-offs involved, we're keeping the option open if we determine that an earlier listing is in our best interest," it added.

Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that OpenAI is in discussions with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley about a listing as early as this fall.

One source said the company is also working on a plan to conduct a tender offer — allowing employees to sell their shares — in the weeks before the IPO.

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI model, filed its own confidential IPO paperwork on June 1. The company surpassed OpenAI in valuation for the first time after its recently completed Series H funding round valued it at $965 billion (about 1,325 trillion won).

Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to list June 12, targeting a valuation of $1.8 trillion, with plans to raise $75 billion (about 103 trillion won) through the offering. That falls well short of the $122 billion (about 167 trillion won) OpenAI raised in a single investment round in March.

OpenAI raised that $122 billion in March at a valuation of $852 billion (about 1,170 trillion won). The company has said it plans to invest roughly $600 billion (about 824 trillion won) in AI infrastructure by 2030.

OpenAI ignited the generative AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, but has since missed some of its internal sales and user growth targets while losing key executives. It is also losing ground to Anthropic in the enterprise customer market and faces intensifying competition from rivals including Google parent Alphabet.

Meanwhile, the industry is watching whether the string of mega-cap AI and space listings — SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI — could act as a "liquidity black hole," drawing foreign capital away from semiconductor and AI-related stocks on the Korean market and amplifying volatility.

Some analysts take a more optimistic view, arguing that while short-term capital outflows are unavoidable, the aggressive AI and space infrastructure expansion by these companies could fuel strong demand for South Korea's high-performance memory chips, creating a shared growth momentum.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com