Leading AI companies are using private funding to control the timing of public-market debuts as higher interest rates weaken the U.S. IPO market. OpenAI has ruled out a 2026 IPO after raising $122 billion in March and is reportedly seeking at least $30 billion more at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion. Anthropic, which confidentially filed on June 1, is reportedly targeting a November debut. Both companies can continue financing large artificial-intelligence infrastructure investments privately, but analysts say the scale of compute spending, employee and early-investor liquidity needs, and long-term data-center financing will eventually make public markets important. The broader IPO market has deteriorated as the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.29% on Sept. 29, while average post-IPO returns for 2026 U.S. listings fell from a 24% gain at the end of June to less than 1% by late September. Seven sizable U.S. IPOs were postponed or withdrawn in the third quarter of 2026. The existing investor watchlist also includes Anthropic’s proposed $2 trillion valuation, semiconductor earnings from Micron and Nvidia, Blockchain.com’s prospective listing and tokenized-equity plans, and BitMine’s Ethereum treasury strategy.