IPO Valuations of Three Major Tech Companies to Exceed Combined Total of All IPOs Over Past 45 Years

[Financial News]  The soaring valuations of major technology companies leading the generative artificial intelligence (AI) market are rewriting the history of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs).
According to major foreign media outlets, including the Financial Times (FT) and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the combined valuations of leading AI companies that are raising investments and preparing to go public have recently surpassed $5 trillion (about 6,700 trillion won), as of the 22nd (local time).
OpenAI is currently raising investment at a valuation of $1.2 trillion, while Anthropic, which is preparing to go public, is expected to be valued at $2 trillion. Adding the $2 trillion valuation of private space exploration company SpaceX brings the total to more than $5 trillion (about 6,743 trillion won). Data from Jay Ritter, an emeritus professor of finance at the University of Florida (UF), show that this exceeds the combined IPO proceeds and market capitalizations of all companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges from 1980 through 2025, a 45-year period. 
The companies are also moving rapidly toward going public. Anthropic, led by Dario Amodei, is aiming to enter the stock market as early as next month or sometime this fall. OpenAI, meanwhile, which had been expected to go public this year, has postponed its IPO until 2027.
The rapid growth of these AI giants has also driven up the valuations of the hardware and semiconductor companies responsible for their infrastructure. NVIDIA, which dominates the AI graphics processing unit (GPU) market, recently reached a market capitalization of $5.5 trillion. Shares of memory-chip maker Micron Technology have also surged more than 1,100% over the past two years.
However, the AI industry also faces significant concerns and challenges. There are ongoing concerns about the potential threat AI technology poses to humanity, as well as its possible exploitation for cybercrime and by authoritarian regimes.
Technology stocks linked to the sector temporarily declined last week after Anthropic CEO Amodei called for the pace of high-performance AI model development to be moderated. Nevertheless, the market continues to favor the view that AI will prosper over the long term, sustaining the investment fervor.



[email protected] Yoon Jae-jun Reporter