OpenAI Preps IPO For ChatGPT Funding in 2026

As global AI rivalry intensifies, OpenAI plans to launch a trillion-dollar IPO in 2026 to fund the next iteration of ChatGPT, according to Reuters.

OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company, is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) in late 2026, which could value the world's largest startup at $1 trillion.

According to three anonymous individuals familiar with the topic, the AI business is preparing to offer an IPO with a $1 trillion valuation, including a $60 billion capital raise, Reuters reported on Thursday.

OpenAI to Launch IPO For ChatGPT Funding in 2026

The filing may reach US securities authorities in the second half of 2026, putting OpenAI on track to launch on public markets before the originally scheduled 2027 deadline. However, the company's representative told Reuters that there is no definite timeline for the IPO, as the company's primary focus remains on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). “We are building ‌a durable business and advancing our mission so everyone benefits from AGI,” they informed us.

The size of the possible offering reflects increased institutional interest in AI development, particularly for OpenAI, which became the world's largest startup after raising $500 billion in a secondary share sale on October 2.

During the share sale, employees sold a total of $6.6 billion in equity to significant corporate investors. The investment saw OpenAI's $500 billion valuation surpass that of Elon Musk's SpaceX business, which was valued at $400 billion.

Chinese AI Competitors Outperform ChatGPT in Crypto Trading

Despite its expanding funding, OpenAI's flagship tool, ChatGPT, has recently been outpaced in a specific niche: autonomous bitcoin trading.

During an autonomous cryptocurrency trading competition, Chinese AI chatbots DeepSeek and Qwen3 Max momentarily outperformed ChatGPT and Grok. DeepSeek was the only AI model to earn a positive trading return of around 9% as of October 22, whereas ChatGPT-5 fell to last position after a 66% loss.

The results were surprising given that DeepSeek was built at a total training cost of $5.3 million, which is a small part of OpenAI's $5.7 billion spend on research and development initiatives in the first half of 2025. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at the crypto intelligence platform Nansen, believes that utilizing suitable prompts and refined training data could enhance the trading performance of certain AI models, particularly ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.