AI bubble, what bubble? American AI firms are racing for IPOs; some Chinese ‘AI Tigers’ already listed, others in pipeline

Despite the debate that Artificial Intelligence firms are in a bubble that would burst soon, several of them are preparing for IPOs. In the US, the contest is mainly between OpenAI and its closest rivals. In China, some big names in the industry, collectively known as ‘AI Tigers’, have either already listed or are in the process. Billions, and possibly trillions, of dollars are at stake. Here is an update.

OpenAI IPO: Plans to beat Anthropic

OpenAI, the company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, wants to go public by the last quarter of 2026 and is trying to beat Anthropic to become the first major generative AI startup to IPO in the US. Valued at around $830 billion, which could rise to $1 trillion at listing, OpenAI has been on a fundraising spree. Major funders include Microsoft and SoftBank, with possible involvement from Amazon as well. This is despite OpenAI projecting cumulative losses of $115 billion through 2029, against annual revenue projections of around $20 billion.

Anthropic is readying for an IPO

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI models, is planning an IPO by mid-2026. Its valuation is around $350 billion following a $10 bn funding round. Anthropic’s investors include Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon. Revenue is projected to reach $26 billion this year.

Musk wants an xAI IPO along with SpaceX: The mother of all AI IPOs?

Elon Musk’s AI company xAI, which is behind the controversial Grok chatbot, is in merger discussions with SpaceX, his space exploration company. The plan appears to be a combined IPO in mid-2026. The combined entity could be valued at $1 trillion. However, xAI is valued at a much lower $230 billion as a standalone company. The AI firm has recently raised $20 billion in a Series E round and has a $2 billion funding commitment from SpaceX. Nvidia and Cisco are among its strategic investors.

Databricks, Cerebras Systems, Cohere and other potential IPO candidates

AI infrastructure provider Databricks could IPO, with its valuation having reached $134 billion in 2025. The company is backed by Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon, with a revenue run rate of around $4.8 billion.

AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems, which is focused on high-performance GPUs, could IPO in the second quarter of 2026. Valued at around $8.1 billion, Cerebras has investors including Fidelity, Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital, Eclipse, Coatue and Benchmark.

The enterprise-focused AI model developer Cohere is another IPO candidate this year, with a $7 billion valuation and $150 million in annual recurring revenue.

Groq, the company that makes AI chips (and is unrelated to Grok), and AI robotics firm Figure AI are also holding pre-IPO discussions, without confirmed IPO dates.

Meanwhile in China: Another AI IPO boom is underway, with some already listed

China is the other major market seeing a scramble for AI IPOs, led by generative “AI tigers” and AI chip companies. Some have already gone public, while others are preparing to IPO.

Among the first to go public was Zhipu AI, a leading “AI tiger” that developed the GLM family of large language models (LLMs). It became the world’s first major LLM company to go public on January 8, with shares closing 13.2 per cent higher on debut. The company is valued at approximately $6.7 billion post-IPO.

MiniMax, another “AI tiger”, known for video generation as well as multimodal AI across text, image and voice, completed its Hong Kong IPO on January 9. Shares of the company behind Talkie AI and Hailuo AI surged 109 per cent on debut, with a current post-IPO valuation of around $13.7 billion. Alibaba is its largest investor, while other backers include Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Future Capital, Xiaomi, Xiaohongshu, Shunwei and IDG.

Moonshot AI, which is behind the Kimi chatbot, could IPO later in 2026.

Major Chinese semiconductor companies are also going public. Kunlunxin, the AI chip unit of Baidu, which is developing chips to rival Nvidia, has plans for a Hong Kong IPO in 2026.

T-Head, Alibaba’s chip unit, could pursue a spinoff IPO. Montage Technology, another AI chip designer for data centres and servers, is pursuing a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Exchange in February. Axera Semiconductor, a maker of AI inference chips, is also set to list in Hong Kong in February