OpenAI filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to start the process of going public.
OpenAI, the ChatGPT-maker, said in a short blog post that the documents were filed "recently" and that it has not decided on an IPO timetable, with reports and analysts expecting a valuation near $1 trillion after its March private round valued the company at about $852 billion.
"A good AI future cannot be one where a small number of institutions control most of the capability and most of the upside," Sam Altman and Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki wrote in a separate blog post calling for global coordination on AI governance.
The filing follows recent IPO moves by Anthropic and SpaceX and, according to PitchBook, places OpenAI into a three-way race where it is not the undisputed AI leader.
A successful offering would put OpenAI among the world's 15 most valuable companies and give it access to billions of dollars needed to build and run the costly models behind its products.
The company said the filing preserves the option to go public sooner but that it may stay private for a while because some work is likely easier outside public markets.
