Tech titans face off in new front of AI race — IPOs

Three of the world’s leading AI companies are racing to go public, opening yet another front in the high-stakes competition over the technology.

SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are all expected to make their stock market debut with hefty valuations, as investors are eager to get in on the companies at the heart of the AI boom that have previously been locked up in private markets.

It marks the latest stage in an AI race that shows no sign of slowing, as Elon Musk’s rocket company and the two AI upstarts seek to join more well-established tech giants on public markets and gain access to additional funding — a key benefit for companies seeking vast amounts of costly computing power.

“These companies need money,” David Foster, a clinical professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business, told The Hill.

“They’re all trying to build out AI infrastructure, their servers, their data centers, power centers, all that stuff. They’re all trying to build all that stuff out at once, so it’s big dollars,” he said.

But as private companies, “they just don’t have the resources to be able to spend that money,” Foster added. “So that’s one of the biggest issues, is they have to come public to go after big equity dollars to be able to spend the money just to keep up with the race.”

SpaceX is the first on deck. The company, which merged with Musk’s xAI earlier this year, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) and is reportedly eyeing a record-breaking $1.75 trillion valuation and a mid-June debut.

On Wednesday, it publicly filed its preliminary prospectus, offering investors the first glimpse into the firm’s underlying finances.

The document shows SpaceX posted a $4.28 billion loss in the first three months of 2026, despite raking in $4.69 billion in revenue. For the full year in 2025, the company brought in $18.67 billion but ultimately faced a loss of $4.94 billion.

SpaceX, which was founded in 2002, has made a name for itself as a leading rocket launch provider and a satellite internet provider via its Starlink business. But........

© The Hill