AI Markets: OpenAI slips toward 2027, Anthropic speeds up, Nvidia raises $500 billion

OpenAI is holding off on its IPO while Anthropic stacks up investor meetings with September in its sights: the AI IPO race is tightening. Meanwhile, Nvidia is mobilizing half a trillion dollars with Wall Street, Unitree has Chinese retail investors in a frenzy, and Intel and TSMC-Sony are raising money to fund their own AI race.

OpenAI buys back $7 billion in employee shares as its IPO slips toward 2027

OpenAI just closed a $7 billion buyback of shares held by current and former employees, without bringing in any new outside investors. The move confirms its $852 billion valuation, but the timing raises questions: it comes as the IPO, once hoped for as early as this year, now appears to be pushed back.

Key takeaways:

  • OpenAI funded the $7 billion employee share buyback itself, rather than opening the deal to outside investors as it did in previous rounds.
  • The valuation remains pegged at the $852 billion reached in the $122 billion funding round closed in March 2026.
  • Sam Altman acknowledged that the past twelve months haven’t been the best in the company’s history, before promising a better year ahead.
  • A confidential filing had been submitted to the US regulator back in June, but several outlets, including NAI500, now point to a possible slip of the listing to 2027.

Why this buyback looks like an admission about timing

Buying back its own shares instead of welcoming new shareholders has a concrete advantage: it avoids complicating the cap table right before a listing. But TechCrunch notes that this choice “suggests an IPO may not be coming right away.” In other words, by paying cash to give its employees liquidity, OpenAI spares itself from having to rush to Wall Street. Sam Altman himself admitted the company is coming off a tough year, without giving any figures. The backdrop: OpenAI reportedly missed some internal financial targets in early 2026, which could dampen its appetite for publishing public financials right now. A delay to 2027 would give the company time to firm up its revenue trajectory before the quarterly public scrutiny that comes with a listing.

This timeline has a direct consequence for the race between AI labs: Anthropic, which is targeting September or October 2026 (see our analysis below), could become the first major generative AI company to go public, beating OpenAI, long touted as the favorite.

What it means for a European investor

As long as OpenAI stays private, there’s no direct access for a European retail investor — no PEA, not even a regular brokerage account. When the listing does happen, it will most likely be on the Nasdaq, like nearly all US tech giants: a regular brokerage account (CTO) will be required, since the PEA is reserved for shares of European companies. In the meantime, indirect exposure comes through companies that hold a stake in OpenAI (Microsoft first and foremost) or through UCITS-eligible US tech equity ETFs.

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Anthropic steps up investor meetings ahead of a targeted September IPO

According to the Wall Street Journal, Anthropic’s executives are holding meeting after meeting with investors to prepare what could become the largest IPO in history. The stated goal: reassure on three sensitive fronts before ringing the Nasdaq bell, sometime between September and October.

Key takeaways:

  • Anthropic is targeting a Nasdaq listing in September or early October 2026, with a benchmark valuation of $965 billion from its May funding round.
  • Executives, including Dario Amodei, are focusing first on three investor concerns: low-cost Chinese competition, tensions with the Trump administration, and growing opposition to data centers in the United States.
  • On China, the argument put forward is that users prefer the most capable models, and that Chinese systems remain several months behind on the most advanced capabilities.
  • OpenAI, long touted as the favorite in the IPO race, now appears to be aiming for 2027 (see our analysis above) — so Anthropic could list first.

Three objections, one goal: build trust before the public prospectus

This kind of roadshow usually comes several weeks before the public filing of the registration statement (S-1), which was already filed confidentially in early June. It’s not just a marketing exercise: the institutional investors who will buy into the IPO want answers before, not after. On Chinese competition, though, management’s argument remains a company opinion, not an independently verified fact — performance gaps between models shift fast. On data centers, the issue is very real and well documented: a Data Center Watch study counted 75 projects blocked or delayed in the United States in the first quarter of 2026 alone, worth about $130 billion, a headwind hitting the entire AI industry, Anthropic included. Financially, the strongest argument remains the trajectory: the company expects 130% revenue growth and its first operating profit, a milestone AI infrastructure investors watch closely to gauge the sector’s sustainability.

The European investor angle

As with OpenAI, there’s no direct access before the listing. Once listed on the Nasdaq, Anthropic stock will, like nearly all US tech stocks, be ineligible for the PEA: you’ll need a regular brokerage account. In the meantime, Amazon and Alphabet, already Anthropic shareholders, offer indirect and partial exposure, also held in a CTO rather than a PEA.

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Nvidia mobilizes more than $500 billion with six Wall Street giants

On August 10, Nvidia announced a partnership with six financial heavyweights — Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR — to create financing platforms dedicated to AI infrastructure, capable of mobilizing more than $500 billion in third-party capital.

Key takeaways:

  • Six memorandums of understanding signed on August 10 with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to build financing platforms for AI compute infrastructure.
  • Stated goal: mobilize more than $500 billion in third-party capital for chips, power generation and data centers.
  • Jensen Huang said on CNBC that he approached only these six firms, and none said no.
  • This announcement adds to other financial commitments Nvidia has made in recent weeks, including the roughly $250 billion guarantee negotiated for an OpenAI data center in Ohio.

A chip supplier turned financier for an entire industry

The structure is new in form: it’s no longer a one-off deal between Nvidia and a specific customer, but permanent platforms designed to finance, on favorable terms, all of Nvidia’s customers looking to build AI data centers. In practice, the chip supplier is helping its customers borrow to… buy its own chips. That’s exactly the pattern observers like Michael Burry criticized in late July regarding the Ohio deal with OpenAI, dubbed “circular financing.” Nvidia justifies the initiative by a real need: data center spending already exceeds the self-funding capacity of the biggest cloud operators, as recent quarterly results from Meta, Amazon and Microsoft have shown. By teaming up with asset managers specializing in private credit and infrastructure (Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR) rather than lending itself, Nvidia in theory limits its own balance-sheet risk while making sure demand for chips keeps getting financed. All of Nvidia’s commitments combined (direct stakes, guarantees, and now these platforms) would amount to several hundred billion dollars, according to Bloomberg estimates cited in late July.

The European investor angle

Nvidia, like the six financial partners announced, is listed on US markets (Nasdaq or NYSE): none of them is PEA-eligible, and a regular brokerage account is required for direct access. Savers looking for diversified exposure to this theme can turn to UCITS-eligible tech or semiconductor equity ETFs, which track Nvidia’s performance without the constraints of a CTO for the US equity portion of a portfolio.

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Unitree: Chinese retail investors rush in ahead of the August 19 listing

The IPO of Unitree, the first pure-play humanoid robot maker to seek a listing on a major global market, drew record demand from Chinese retail investors. The result: shares that are nearly impossible for the general public to get, even though the price already values the company at 219 times earnings.

Key takeaways:

  • The retail tranche was oversubscribed 8,288.82 times after the clawback mechanism, with 53.64 billion shares requested — roughly a 0.018% chance of getting any shares.
  • The price was set at 150.80 yuan per share (about $22.3), valuing Unitree at about 219 times earnings, versus a sector average of 38.6 times.
  • Heavyweight strategic investors took part in the offering: China’s social security fund, DeepSeek and China National Petroleum Corporation.
  • Trading on Shanghai’s STAR Market is expected to begin around August 19, once the share allocation results are released on August 14.

Hype that needs some perspective

Oversubscription of more than 8,000 times isn’t a sign of lasting scarcity: mostly, it reflects very restricted access to the offering, with a float deliberately kept small by Chinese market regulators for new listings. The valuation of 219 times earnings — six times the sector average — already bakes in a huge amount of optimism about the trajectory of humanoid robotics, even though Unitree’s revenue growth slowed sharply in the first half (+35 to 45%, versus +332% a year earlier) and its adjusted net income is expected to decline, due to rising research spending. The presence of DeepSeek in the round, alongside a state-owned oil heavyweight like CNPC, mainly shows Unitree’s role as a national technology showcase rather than a simple conventional financial bet. The real test will come on the very first day of trading: how the stock performs against this already generous IPO price will show whether the retail frenzy translates into immediate overvaluation or reflects genuine long-term conviction.

The European investor angle

Shanghai-listed A-shares remain closed to foreign retail investors and to French investment wrappers: neither the PEA nor a standard regular brokerage account provides direct access. The simplest exposure for a European investor remains a UCITS ETF dedicated to robotics and automation, which captures the theme without betting on a single hard-to-access Chinese stock.

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Intel sells $15 billion in stock to fund its AI push

Intel has launched a $15 billion stock offering to fund its expansion into AI chips and advanced foundry. The actual dilution for existing shareholders is only about 3%, but the market reacted far more strongly than that.

Key takeaways:

  • Intel is issuing $15 billion in new shares through a standard public offering, backed by its existing shelf registration.
  • The mathematical dilution for existing shareholders is about 3%, but the stock fell about 5% on the announcement.
  • The funds will go toward AI data center chips, physical AI, advanced packaging, and expanding foundry capacity for third-party customers.
  • Yet Intel stock had gained more than 500% in the twelve months before the announcement, driven by bets on its foundry turnaround.

Why the market is reacting more than the dilution justifies

Three percent dilution should, in theory, cost only three percent in value per share — not five. The gap comes from the message sent more than from the numbers themselves: raising money by selling stock rather than borrowing is an admission that current profitability isn’t yet keeping pace with investment. Intel lost money on a strict accounting basis last quarter, and even its adjusted earnings represent only a fraction of its annual capital spending budget, now above $20 billion. Funding with equity rather than debt has one advantage: it protects Intel’s “investment grade” credit rating, which matters for a company that also needs to borrow elsewhere. But it also signals that banks aren’t ready to lend on terms as favorable as what other AI players are getting — a sharp contrast with the $500 billion mega-financing Nvidia just announced with Wall Street (see our analysis above). For Intel, every dollar of capex is still a bet on its ability to catch up with TSMC and Samsung in foundry before investors lose patience.

The European investor angle

Intel is listed on the Nasdaq, so it’s outside the PEA: a regular brokerage account is required to hold the stock directly. Unlike competitors such as ASML (listed in Amsterdam and PEA-eligible), exposure to Intel for a French investor necessarily goes through a CTO or through a UCITS ETF tracking US tech stocks or global semiconductors.

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TSMC and Sony bet $6.4 billion on a new sensor plant in Japan

Sony and TSMC are discussing a combined investment of about 1 trillion yen ($6.4 billion) to build a new plant for next-generation image sensors in Japan, backed by government subsidies.

Key takeaways:

  • The project, worth about ¥1 trillion ($6.4 billion), would be roughly 60% owned by Sony and 40% by TSMC.
  • The plant would be located at Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ existing site in Koshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, where TSMC already runs its first Japanese fab.
  • Mass production is targeted for as early as 2029, with new production lines and large-scale R&D facilities.
  • Japan’s industry ministry has already approved up to 60 billion yen (about $378 million) in subsidies to Sony for this type of project, and the two companies are discussing additional public support specific to this joint venture.

Why Sony is teaming up with its contract-manufacturing neighbor

Sony dominates the global image sensor market (used in smartphones and cameras) but until now made most of its output in-house. Partnering with TSMC, already on the same site through its JASM fab, marks a change in approach: rather than funding the upgrade of its sensors alone, Sony shares the industrial risk with the world’s largest foundry, which brings its expertise in advanced process technology. For Japan, it continues a strategy it has championed for several years: Tokyo has already committed up to 476 billion yen to TSMC’s first Kumamoto fab and up to 732 billion yen more to the second, a combined public effort well above a billion dollars for this site alone. The announcement comes two weeks after the July 28 earthquake that disrupted TSMC and Sony plants in the same region — a location choice confirming that neither Tokyo nor the two companies intend to slow their bet on Kumamoto, despite a seismic risk that has already materialized.

The European investor angle

Neither Sony (listed in Tokyo) nor TSMC (listed in Taiwan, with an ADR in New York) is PEA-eligible. Direct access requires a regular brokerage account; for more diversified exposure to the Asian semiconductor supply chain, UCITS global tech or semiconductor ETFs remain the simplest option for a French saver, with a Japan/Taiwan weighting that generally stays a minority compared with the United States.

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Edition prepared by our monitoring agent (data and sources as of Tuesday, August 11, 2026), reviewed in line with our editorial policy. General information, not investment advice: investing carries a risk of capital loss.