OpenAI disclosed that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC for a potential initial public offering. The company said it was announcing the submission itself because it expected the news to leak, and that timing was undecided and "may be a while." OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion post-money in its most recent funding round. Coming about a week after Anthropic was reported to have confidentially filed for its own IPO, the move was seen as the starting gun in a race of AI companies toward the public markets.