OpenAI and Anthropic Feel the Heat From China: IPO Delay Rumors and the AI Bubble Debate

Chinese AI models have rapidly closed the gap with their US counterparts in recent months, and the US government has begun intervening in who is allowed to access Anthropic and OpenAI's most advanced models. This isn't framed as pure technical competition but as a 'technological cold war' -- two superpowers pursuing AI dominance through fundamentally different approaches.

The clearest symbol is GLM 5.2, a coding-focused model released by a publicly listed Chinese company. It has earned strong praise, particularly for programming assistance, with some calling it a repeat of the 'DeepSeek moment' -- a second shock to assumptions about the US's technical lead.

The news that caught many off guard: reports that OpenAI may be considering delaying its planned IPO from this year to next. According to those reports, the banks advising the IPO told Sam Altman he faces a choice -- accept a lower valuation than desired to go public sooner, or wait until as late as 2027.

By contrast, Elon Musk's SpaceX has already completed its IPO, raising $85 billion at a valuation approaching $2 trillion. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have only filed confidential IPO paperwork with the SEC, with no public prospectus yet. Once one is released, the market is expected to scrutinize competitive intensity and the underlying business models' economic durability closely.

The discussion extends to concerns that hyperscalers -- Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle -- may be overbuilding data-center capacity relative to unclear returns on AI investment. Doubts are accumulating in the market as capital keeps flowing in without a clear path to profitability for the underlying models.

Whether this actually triggers the end of the AI boom or a bubble collapse remains uncertain, but between the technological cold war framing and the impact on US tech stocks and the broader economy, this is a sector that warrants continued close attention.