As OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, prepares for an initial public offering (IPO), some in the market are saying its valuation is excessive.
The Information, a U.S. IT outlet, reported on the 9th that opinions were divided on OpenAI's valuation after surveying 11 public-market investors.
Investors agreed that OpenAI holds significant influence in the artificial intelligence (AI) market, but they were cautious about whether its profitability will last and about its IPO pricing.
Bob Lang, founder of trading firm Explosive Options, said, "I acknowledge that OpenAI is a corporations with strong competitiveness, but no valuation presented on the first day of listing will offer sufficient value to investors." Lang said he would not participate in the offering if OpenAI's valuation relative to revenue is set higher than Nvidia's.
OpenAI is currently valued at about $850 billion (about 1,252.985 trillion won). That is roughly 28 times this year's expected revenue of $300. By contrast, Nvidia trades at about 12 times its expected revenue.
Short seller Jim Chanos said, "Nvidia has a dominant position, high margins and solid cash flow," adding, "I question why OpenAI should be valued higher."
The rise of rival Anthropic was also cited as a variable. Anthropic is also reportedly preparing to list, and it is growing quickly with a corporations client–focused strategy, earning an estimated valuation of $380 billion.
The burden of fixed costs from large-scale data center investment is also seen as a risk. Mark Malek, chief investment officer (CIO) at Siebert Financial, noted, "A corporations that loses a government contract can just cut expense, but OpenAI cannot easily halt its massive data center investments in the short term."
CNBC reported that behind OpenAI and Oracle scrapping their plan to expand the Abilene, Texas, data center is a search for a new site to build infrastructure based on Nvidia's next-generation Rubin chips. The existing center is outfitted with current-generation Blackwell chips.
However, in an environment where next-generation chips are released quickly, the fact that it takes one to two years to build a data center is seen as a burden. Oracle, which is handling OpenAI's data center build-out, is raising funds through corporate bond issuances, and its liability is reportedly over $100 billion.