Sam Altman · Anthropic · Stargate · OpenAI · SpaceX · New York · The Guardian Technology
As the tech mega-IPO race heats up, has OpenAI overlooked its moment?
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A year is a long time in AI. 12 months ago, Sam Altman was predicting his company OpenAI would build a super intelligence and fundamentally remake society.
Key facts
- The Information reports that OpenAI made revenue of $5.7bn in the first quarter of this year, but with adjusted negative margins of -122%, meaning it lost $1.22 for every dollar it spent
- Vast sums chased these visions of ultimate power; OpenAI announced a $500bn investment into US AI infrastructure, called Stargate, “to secure American leadership in AI”. (For good measure, it announced a less-expensive Stargate in the UK, which it shelved in April this year
- Can OpenAI, valued at $852bn at its last funding round, mount a successful IPO
- Then again, Facebook’s IPO was also a flop and it is now worth more than $1.5tn
Summary
Meanwhile, rivals are storming ahead with plans to expand and go public on the stock market, in what is widely expected to be a season of record-setting initial public offerings (IPOs). Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which owns xAI, is going to float this month, while Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO on Monday in what the New York Times said could be a “once in a generation” moment for Wall Street. These flotations, and OpenAI’s, if it happens, will reveal much about the ambitions and state of the AI economy. One might have been forgiven, back in the halcyon days of early 2025, for thinking that money, or at least, the question of a profit, wasn’t everything to Altman.