Head-on confrontation with SpaceX! OpenAI was exposed to have submitted an IPO application this week. Deutsche Bank expects to raise $60 billion and be valued at over $1 trillion.

With SpaceX officially submitting its application for listing on the Nasdaq, OpenAI was subsequently exposed to secretly submit its application this week, officially kicking off a battle to attract global institutional capital. According to the latest report from the research department of Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, the developer of ChatGPT may potentially submit its IPO application in the coming days or weeks, with a target fundraising of approximately 600 billion US dollars and a corresponding valuation exceeding 1 trillion US dollars - this also means that OpenAI's IPO fundraising scale will be second only to SpaceX's potential fundraising scale of approximately 75 billion US dollars in history. According to reports, OpenAI is scheduled to secretly submit its IPO prospectus this Friday, with the goal of going public in September of this year. Over the past few months, the company has been working closely with Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Morgan Stanley, and the law firm Cooley to advance its listing preparations. From the recent valuation perspective, after completing a private financing of 122 billion US dollars in March of this year, OpenAI's post-investment valuation has reached 852 billion US dollars. If listed with a valuation of 1 trillion US dollars, OpenAI will become the 14th largest company globally by market capitalization, ranking after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A.US) and before Eli Lilly and Company (LLY.US). Rapid revenue growth, profitability a distant concern OpenAI's valuation logic is based on strong revenue growth. According to the report from Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, OpenAI's annualized revenue has reached approximately 30 billion US dollars. Based on publicly available information, OpenAI's revenue is about 2 billion US dollars in 2023, about 6 billion US dollars in 2024, and about 13.1 billion US dollars in 2025. As of the end of February 2026, its annualized revenue has exceeded 25 billion US dollars, more than quadrupling in 14 months. The company disclosed that its API processes over 15 billion tokens per minute, with enterprise revenue accounting for over 40%. However, the rapid growth in revenue has not translated into profitability. OpenAI expects to lose about 14 billion US dollars for the full year 2026, and cash consumption will further increase, with the earliest possibility of achieving positive cash flow not until 2030. The company's gross profit margin is only about 33%, with inference costs reaching 8.4 billion US dollars in 2025 and expected to increase to 14.1 billion US dollars in 2026. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft expressed a clear warning in the report - investors' understanding of the long-term business models and unit economics of AI companies is still very limited. The report sees this IPO as a "crucial test" to see if the AI hype can deliver long-term economic value. Anthropic's surge intensifies competition anxiety Another key factor driving OpenAI to accelerate its IPO sprint is the competition from rival Anthropic. Founded by former executives of OpenAI, Anthropic has recently achieved a historic surpass on the revenue front. Its annualized revenue has surged from about 1 billion US dollars in January 2025 to over 300 billion US dollars in April 2026, officially surpassing OpenAI's approximately 25 billion US dollars during the same period. In terms of market share among enterprise customers, according to the AI Index report released by the financial technology platform Ramp, as of April 2026, 34.4% of surveyed enterprise customers are paying for Anthropic's AI products, surpassing OpenAI's 32.3% for the first time. Among the top 34 AI startups globally, OpenAI and Anthropic together account for about 89% of the annualized revenue share. OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has always advocated for completing the IPO before Anthropic to compete for the attention and funds of public market investors. Dan Ives, head of global technology research at Wedbush, also believes that in this "arms race" around AI, being the first to go public is crucial - those who meet with investors first during roadshows have an advantage. However, there are internal disagreements within OpenAI about the pace of going public. Insiders revealed that CFO Sarah Friar takes a more cautious stance on going public, leaning towards building a more solid financial foundation first, while Altman sees the IPO as a strategic tool for raising funds for infrastructure. Intense capital warfare, competition risks and uncertainties coexist The decision by OpenAI to submit its listing application at this time is also intertwined with a financial game with SpaceX. Just last Wednesday, SpaceX officially submitted its IPO application, planning to raise about 75 billion US dollars at a valuation of up to 1.75 trillion US dollars. Insiders said that OpenAI hopes to send signals to public market investors as early as possible to attract funds for itself, rather than betting all its "firepower" on SpaceX. To clear obstacles to the listing, OpenAI has taken multiple measures over the past year: completed the transition to a for-profit entity, cut some high-cost peripheral businesses, and won a long-standing legal battle with Musk earlier this week. Musk had previously sued OpenAI for "stealing charitable organizations" to prevent its commercialization, a lawsuit that has now been settled. However, the report from Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft still lists multiple risks: continued lack of profitability at OpenAI, unclear long-term business models, intensified competition, regulatory uncertainties, and ethical controversies in technology, among others. The report particularly points out that despite strong demand, investors need to be cautious of information asymmetry and expectation management risks.