AI Daily: OpenAI plans IPO filing as soon as this week

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.

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SEPTEMBER LISTING: OpenAI is preparing to file for a public listing as early as this week, with the AI lab aiming for a blockbuster initial public offering as soon as September, Financial Times’ George Hammond reports. The company has been laying the groundwork for an offering expected to value it at north of $1T, working with bankers at Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) and lawyers at Cooley over the past few months, according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter. The group could file a draft IPO prospectus as early as Friday, starting the timer on a public listing for the autumn, FT added. That timing could shift depending on the market and on the performance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is expected to go public next month in the biggest listing of all time, the author notes.

DEALMAKING IN AI INDUSTRY: Nvidia (NVDA) has committed $90B to dealmaking in the AI industry over the past 16 months, Ryan McMorrow and Michael Acton of The Financial Times reports. The company committed $47B to investments in partnerships in the year to January 25 and designated an additional $43B in the four months since.

BETS ON OPENAI: SoftBank Group (SFTBY) invested billions in OpenAI last year, leading to some executives asking Masayoshi Son what would happen if ChatGPT ever failed, Min-Jeong Lee and Mayumi Negishi of Bloomberg report. On multiple occasions, Son has dismissed such questions, often so bluntly that his lieutenants have stopped asking, people familiar with the conversations told Bloomberg. Recent breakthroughs by rival Anthropic, however, has raised doubts about OpenAI, with some SoftBank officials anxious over the ballooning commitment to the U.S. company.

AI-NATIVE MODERNIZATION ON AZURE: Grid Dynamics (GDYN) announced an AI-native modernization service offering on Microsoft Azure (MSFT), powered by its GAIN Platform for SDLC. The offering targets large enterprise clients running mission-critical, high-transaction-volume legacy environments. By tackling their biggest roadblocks-technical debt and legacy licensing costs-it addresses a market segment known for larger contracts and stronger margins. “The introduction of our GAIN Platform for SDLC on Microsoft Azure is a pivotal moment for enterprises looking to shed technical debt and achieve cloud-native agility. By leveraging our proven AI modernization frameworks with Azure’s infrastructure, we are enabling mission-critical systems to not just migrate, but to fundamentally transform and modernize, unlocking massive innovation potential while driving down legacy costs,” said Rahul Bindlish, SVP Global Partnerships and Marketing at Grid Dynamics.

WHATSAPP ACCESS: Meta (META) has offered EU regulators a proposal to allow rival AI chatbots, including OpenAI systems, free access to WhatsApp in Europe up to a usage threshold, after which Meta would begin charging fees, in an effort to address antitrust scrutiny from the European Commission over its messaging platform access policies, Reuters’ Foo Yun Chee reports.