OpenAI Begins Preparations for a Q4 IPO... In Talks with Amazon on an Investment of Up to $50 Billion

OpenAI has reportedly begun full-scale preparations for an initial public offering (IPO), targeting the fourth quarter of this year.

According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 30th (local time), OpenAI—valued at $500 billion (about 715 trillion won)—has recently held informal meetings with major Wall Street investment banks to gauge the feasibility of a listing. To that end, it has significantly strengthened its finance and investor relations (IR) functions, including the hires of newly appointed Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) Aszmer Dale and Cynthia Gaylor, head of corporate business finance.

Analysts say a key driver behind OpenAI accelerating its IPO timetable is the rapid growth of rival Anthropic. OpenAI’s leadership is reportedly concerned internally that Anthropic could list first, capturing market liquidity and investor attention. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has seen revenue surge on the back of the popularity of its coding agent “Claude Code,” and is in talks with financial partners with an eye toward an IPO by year-end. Anthropic in particular expects to turn profitable in 2028—two years earlier than OpenAI’s projected timeline.

The enormous burden of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investment is also cited as a factor pushing the company to move faster. OpenAI faces the need to secure AI semiconductors and build data centers on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars in the years ahead. It must raise massive funding backed by market confidence. OpenAI is currently said to be in negotiations to attract $30 billion from SoftBank and as much as $50 billion from Amazon. The process reportedly includes direct discussions with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

Still, there are plenty of variables to clear before a listing within the year. With Google stepping up its push in the consumer AI market, some observers say a “code red” has been issued inside OpenAI. In addition, a $134 billion damages lawsuit filed by co-founder Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is also acting as a potential risk. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said, “I’m not interested in being a public company CEO, but there are aspects where going public may be necessary,” signaling mixed feelings.

On Wall Street, this year is being viewed as the biggest “IPO supercycle” since 2026. Beyond OpenAI and Anthropic, SpaceX led by Musk is also reportedly pursuing an IPO as early as this summer, aiming for a valuation of at least $1 trillion.