OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic
OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic
OpenAI 继 Anthropic 之后秘密提交 IPO 申请
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, the company announced Monday in a blog post. The filing comes a little more than a week after its main rival, Anthropic, also filed to go public, ramping up the race between the two AI firms. ChatGPT 的开发商 OpenAI 周一通过博客文章宣布，公司已秘密提交了首次公开募股（IPO）申请。此次提交申请距离其主要竞争对手 Anthropic 提交上市申请仅过去一周多，这进一步加剧了两家人工智能公司之间的竞争。
OpenAI, which was last valued at $852 billion post-money, submitted a draft registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO. OpenAI hasn’t shared any specifics yet. However, the company said it posted the blog because it expected a leak. “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company,” the company wrote. “But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.” OpenAI 在上一轮融资后的估值为 8520 亿美元，目前已向美国证券交易委员会（SEC）提交了拟议 IPO 的注册草案。OpenAI 尚未披露任何具体细节。不过，该公司表示发布这篇博客是因为预计消息会泄露。公司写道：“我们尚未决定具体时间；可能还需要一段时间，因为有些事情作为私营公司处理起来更容易。但这涉及一系列复杂的权衡，如果最终证明是最佳选择，这也为我们提供了提前上市的选项。”
Around the same time, and in a separate blog post, OpenAI published a sweeping philosophical statement about its mission, its vision for AGI, and its belief that AI should benefit all of humanity — the kind of forward-looking communication that companies entering a quiet period have historically been careful to avoid. That OpenAI appears comfortable publishing it so close to a confidential filing says something — not necessarily about its own legal judgment but about the regulatory environment it’s operating in. The SEC under the Trump administration has taken a markedly more hands-off posture toward tech and AI companies than it did under previous administrations, and OpenAI may simply be reading the room. 与此同时，OpenAI 在另一篇博客文章中发布了一份宏大的哲学声明，阐述了其使命、对通用人工智能（AGI）的愿景，以及 AI 应造福全人类的信念——这种前瞻性的沟通方式，通常是进入“静默期”的公司会极力避免的。OpenAI 似乎在提交秘密申请后不久就发布此声明，这耐人寻味——这未必反映了其自身的法律判断，而是反映了其所处的监管环境。特朗普政府领导下的 SEC 对科技和 AI 公司采取了比往届政府明显更宽松的态度，OpenAI 可能只是在审时度势。
Whatever the regulatory questions, the filing is the latest signal that 2026 will be a blockbuster year for the public markets. SpaceX is also expected to make its debut at a $1.75 trillion valuation, meaning three of the most closely watched companies in tech could all go public within months of each other — a concentration of high-stakes offerings the markets haven’t seen since the dot-com boom. 无论监管问题如何，此次申请都是 2026 年公开市场将迎来重磅年份的最新信号。SpaceX 也预计将以 1.75 万亿美元的估值上市，这意味着科技界最受关注的三家公司可能在几个月内相继上市——这种高风险 IPO 的集中度是自互联网泡沫时期以来市场从未见过的。
OpenAI is racing to IPO even as it recently missed its own targets for new users and revenue, per The Wall Street Journal. Its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, has reportedly raised concerns that OpenAI may not be able to support its massive data center spending. And the burn does appear to be massive. In late March, OpenAI secured $122 billion in the largest funding round in Silicon Valley history — $3 billion of which came directly from retail investors via bank channels. But the firm expects to spend roughly that same amount on computing power for AI research alone in 2028, and projects burning $85 billion that year even after doubling sales from the year prior, per The Wall Street Journal. 据《华尔街日报》报道，尽管 OpenAI 最近未达到其设定的新用户和收入目标，但仍在竞相 IPO。据报道，其首席财务官 Sarah Friar 曾表示担忧，认为 OpenAI 可能无法支撑其庞大的数据中心支出。目前的资金消耗确实巨大。3 月下旬，OpenAI 获得了硅谷历史上最大规模的 1220 亿美元融资，其中 30 亿美元直接来自通过银行渠道的散户投资者。但据《华尔街日报》报道，该公司预计 2028 年仅在 AI 研究的计算能力上就将花费大致相同的金额，并预计即使销售额比上一年翻了一番，当年仍将消耗 850 亿美元。
Put another way, OpenAI is asking public market investors to buy into a business that, by its own projections, won’t generate more cash than it spends for at least four more years. SpaceX offers a parallel data point. Its AI spending, while not as massive, illustrates how the cost to train large language models can exceed the revenue those models generate — a structural challenge the entire industry is grappling with, and one that public market investors will have to price. 换句话说，OpenAI 正在要求公开市场的投资者投资一家根据其自身预测，至少在未来四年内支出将超过收入的企业。SpaceX 提供了一个平行的参考点。虽然其 AI 支出没有那么巨大，但它说明了训练大语言模型的成本如何可能超过这些模型产生的收入——这是整个行业都在努力应对的结构性挑战，也是公开市场投资者必须进行定价的风险。
Anthropic, on the other hand, has provided investors a much rosier picture of its financials, saying that it is close to achieving its first quarterly profit. Even so, with a recent $65 billion funding round and another $36 billion in chip-allocated debt potentially on its way, Anthropic’s burn rate isn’t exactly modest. 另一方面，Anthropic 向投资者展示了更为乐观的财务前景，称其即将实现首次季度盈利。即便如此，随着最近 650 亿美元的融资以及可能即将到来的 360 亿美元芯片相关债务，Anthropic 的资金消耗率也并不算低。
The confidential IPO filing allows OpenAI to start its preparation for a public offering without publicly disclosing detailed financial information or business risks, which is why the company hasn’t shared stock pricing or how much it hopes to raise yet. That said, the secondary markets provide a glimpse into what investors are willing to pay. Anthropic recently surged to a $1 trillion valuation on Forge Global, a retail secondary market platform, surpassing OpenAI, which was recorded at around $880 billion in April. 秘密 IPO 申请允许 OpenAI 在不公开详细财务信息或业务风险的情况下启动上市准备工作，这就是为什么该公司尚未分享股票定价或计划筹集金额的原因。话虽如此，二级市场提供了一个观察投资者支付意愿的窗口。Anthropic 最近在零售二级市场平台 Forge Global 上的估值飙升至 1 万亿美元，超过了 4 月份记录的约 8800 亿美元的 OpenAI。
David Shapiro, founder and CEO of OpenVC and overseer of the NYSE OpenVC 500 Index, which tracks the largest public and private companies in the U.S. He said Anthropic’s rate of appreciation far exceeds OpenAI this year — 123% year-to-date versus OpenAI’s 11.3%. That said, despite Anthropic’s clear boost, OpenAI isn’t seeing a lack of secondary interest. “From a secondary investor standpoint, OpenAI had already grown into a significant portion of its valuation,” Shapiro told TechCrunch. “We haven’t seen OpenAI crater or anything close, and the valuation is still enormously successful, according to the index.” He added that OpenAI’s stock in the secondary market “experienced a slight pop over the last few days, indicating investors may be pricing both as the ‘dual winners’ of the broader LLM race.” OpenVC 创始人兼首席执行官、负责追踪美国最大上市和私营公司的 NYSE OpenVC 500 指数的 David Shapiro 表示，今年 Anthropic 的增值速度远超 OpenAI——年初至今增长了 123%，而 OpenAI 为 11.3%。尽管如此，尽管 Anthropic 增长明显，但 OpenAI 在二级市场并不缺乏关注。“从二级市场投资者的角度来看，OpenAI 的估值已经增长到了相当大的规模，”Shapiro 告诉 TechCrunch。“我们没有看到 OpenAI 崩盘或类似情况，根据该指数，其估值仍然非常成功。”他补充说，OpenAI 的股票在二级市场上“在过去几天里出现了小幅上涨，这表明投资者可能将两者都视为更广泛的大语言模型竞赛中的‘双赢者’。”
But the race to get to the public markets first is a real concern. Experts say whoever makes their debut first will likely nab more of what is becoming increasingly scarce capital for AI companies — much of which may have already been absorbed by SpaceX, which is expected to IPO first among the three. Additionally, Anthropic’s filing disclosures will set a valuation comp that constrains how OpenAI can price its own offering when it files, according to a recent PitchBook report that characterized OpenAI as overvalued relative to its fundamentals. In other words, if Anthropic prices conservatively, OpenAI’s path to its target valuation gets harder. 但争先上市确实是一个令人担忧的问题。专家表示，谁先上市，谁就可能抢占更多对 AI 公司而言日益稀缺的资本——其中大部分可能已经被 SpaceX 吸收，预计 SpaceX 将是三者中第一个 IPO 的。此外，根据 PitchBook 最近的一份报告，Anthropic 的披露信息将设定一个估值参照，这会限制 OpenAI 在提交申请时对其自身发行的定价，该报告认为 OpenAI 相对于其基本面而言估值过高。换句话说，如果 Anthropic 定价保守，OpenAI 实现其目标估值的道路就会变得更加艰难。
OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and disrupted the world of AI when it released ChatGPT in 2022, sparking a wave of large language model advancements across the industry. While OpenAI has expanded its products to accommodate enterprise and government customers, the firm has a strong reputation of being more consumer-focused than rival Anthropic. The company has built real scale, with around 900 million weekly active users. The IPO comes after significant internal struggles within the company. In 2022, OpenAI’s board oust… OpenAI 成立于 2015 年，最初是一家非营利性研究实验室。2022 年发布 ChatGPT 时，它颠覆了 AI 世界，引发了整个行业大语言模型进步的浪潮。虽然 OpenAI 已经扩展了产品以适应企业和政府客户，但该公司在消费者导向方面比竞争对手 Anthropic 享有更高的声誉。该公司已经建立了真正的规模，拥有约 9 亿周活跃用户。此次 IPO 是在公司内部经历重大斗争之后进行的。2022 年，OpenAI 的董事会罢免了……