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OpenAI has become the latest tech firm to file for an IPO, hot on the heels of Anthropic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. These moves speak to a need for cash: all three companies are investing heavily in expensive AI infrastructure and will likely get billions of dollars from selling shares to the public. None of them is currently profitable, although Anthropic claims it is about to get there. Although OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX are in competition for investment and computational power, they are also fundamentally different propositions. OpenAI wants to monetise products that many users have come to expect for free, Anthropic wants to scale its enterprise partnerships to achieve sustainable growth, and SpaceX wants Elon Musk to turn his orbital data centre fantasies into reality. Anthropic, for now, is probably the best bet.
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