OpenAI is reportedly choosing one more colossal private-financing round over an immediate dash to Wall Street — a move that could make its eventual IPO even harder to price.

The runway was laid earlier this year. In March, OpenAI’s previous fundraising valued the ChatGPT maker at $852 billion post-money. By June, it had confidentially filed IPO paperwork, signaling public-market ambitions while keeping its timetable private.¹

The company’s internal messaging has since exposed the tension behind that strategy. CFO Sarah Friar told employees in August that OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027.” A month later, however, chief executive Sam Altman cautioned that “right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public.”²

That caution appears to be driving the latest plan. OpenAI is now nearing a raise of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, with UAE investors and Coatue leading the proposed deal. The round is being presented as an “opportunistic” bridge to a potential IPO, though its final size and terms remain under negotiation.²

For investors, the wager is not simply on software sales but on the infrastructure required to sustain them. Alongside the financing, OpenAI is negotiating for additional computing capacity from the UAE, according to people familiar with the talks. The company has told investors it expects roughly $600 billion in total compute spending by 2030.²

A valuation above $1 trillion would set a private-company record and raise the stakes for a 2027 listing. It would also sharpen the rivalry with Anthropic, which has filed confidentially for an IPO and is reportedly targeting a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion public-market valuation. OpenAI’s bridge, in other words, is also a bid to reach the market from a position of overwhelming scale.¹