Key Takeaways
- OpenAI is reportedly planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for late 2026, potentially valuing the company at $1 trillion.
- This move would surpass its previous $500 billion valuation achieved in a secondary share sale.
- The IPO aims to raise $60 billion, signaling strong institutional interest in AI development.
- Despite its progress, OpenAI’s ChatGPT was recently outperformed in autonomous crypto trading by Chinese AI models like DeepSeek.
- OpenAI maintains that its primary focus is advancing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), not immediate IPO plans.
OpenAI Eyes Potential Trillion-Dollar IPO
Artificial intelligence leader OpenAI is reportedly laying the groundwork for a highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO), with an eye on debuting in late 2026. This strategic move could position the company as the world’s largest startup, potentially reaching an unprecedented $1 trillion valuation upon its public market entry.
The ambitious $1 trillion valuation is tied to a significant capital raise estimated at $60 billion. According to anonymous sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters, the filing with US securities regulators could occur in the latter half of 2026, accelerating OpenAI’s public debut from its previously targeted 2027 timeframe.
💡 However, a spokesperson for OpenAI clarified to Reuters that no definitive date for the IPO has been set. The company’s immediate priority remains dedicated to the ongoing development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). We are building a durable business and advancing our mission so everyone benefits from AGI, the spokesperson stated.
The scale of this potential offering underscores the escalating institutional investment and keen interest in the burgeoning field of AI. OpenAI solidified its status as the world’s largest startup following a secondary share sale in October, which propelled its valuation to an impressive $500 billion.
During this secondary sale, OpenAI employees collectively offloaded $6.6 billion in stock to major corporate investors. This significant transaction saw OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation eclipse that of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which was valued at $400 billion at the time.
Chinese AI Rivals Outperform in Niche Crypto Trading
Despite its substantial financial growth and market dominance, OpenAI’s flagship product, ChatGPT, has recently faced a notable challenge in a specialized area: autonomous cryptocurrency trading. In a recent autonomous crypto trading competition, Chinese AI chatbots DeepSeek and Qwen3 Max demonstrated superior performance, briefly surpassing ChatGPT and Grok in trading outcomes.
📊 As of October 22, DeepSeek emerged as the sole AI model to achieve a positive trading return, posting approximately a 9% gain. In contrast, ChatGPT-5 experienced a significant downturn, reporting a 66% loss and consequently slipping to the last position among the competing models.
These results stand out, especially considering the disparity in development costs. DeepSeek was reportedly trained at a total cost of just $5.3 million, a mere fraction of OpenAI’s substantial investment. OpenAI reported spending approximately $5.7 billion on its research and development initiatives during the first half of 2025 alone.
✅ However, the performance of AI models in trading can be significantly influenced by prompt engineering and the quality of training data. According to Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at the crypto intelligence platform Nansen, refined prompts and enhanced training datasets could substantially improve the trading capabilities of models like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Assuming all models received the same prompts and instructions for trading, it can be assumed that the difference lies in the data each model has been trained on, Sondergaard explained, highlighting the critical role of data in AI performance.
Expert Summary
OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a potential IPO in late 2026 at a $1 trillion valuation, signaling strong market interest in AI. While the company emphasizes its AGI development, recent crypto trading competitions showed Chinese AI models outperforming ChatGPT. Experts suggest that training data and prompt optimization are key factors influencing AI performance in specialized tasks.