OpenAI has submitted the necessary documentation to the Securities and Exchange Commission to prepare for an initial public offering (IPO) that will test the appetite of commercial investors for a company that has raised billions in private but has yet to turn a profit.

Following in the footsteps of its rival Anthropic, the AI developer announced on Monday that it had filed a confidential S-1 form with the Commission, the first step towards going public. It said it was announcing the filing before it was leaked, adding that: “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company.

“But it’s a complicated set of trade-offs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

The confidential filing means that the document will not be publicly available before the company decides to issue a prospectus. This is common practice from US tech groups, according to the Financial Times, as it allows firms to gauge investor demand, make revisions, and even scrap plans to go public without further scrutiny.

The company’s most recent private valuation placed it at $852 billion, slightly below Anthropic’s $965 billion, but the FT reported that both could end at totals of over $1 trillion during IPO.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper added that OpenAI intends to launch an employee share sale ahead of going public, with one saying its decision to announce the filing was intended to give employees who were considering selling shares “transparency” about the upcoming IPO.

The announcement comes days before SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace and AI company, debuts at $135 per share aiming at a valuation of $1.75 trillion.

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