For the past few years, public market exposure to artificial intelligence has largely meant buying a handful of companies that sit underneath the models themselves. Microsoft was the primary conduit to OpenAI, investing more than $13 billion and embedding its systems across Azure and Office. Alphabet and Amazon have taken a similar role with Anthropic, backing the company with multi-billion-dollar commitments while integrating its models into their cloud ecosystems. And in the middle of the compute layer sits Nvidia, which has a data center segment that has become increasingly tied to demand from AI training and inference workloads. Together, these firms have defined what investors think of as the "AI trade," not ownership of the models, but ownership of the systems that make them possible.

That structure may be starting to shift. OpenAI and Anthropic have both filed confidential preparations for eventual public listings, while SpaceX is set to IPO this month. This current IPO pipeline is set to mark one of the most significant transitions of the AI era: moving from indirect exposure through hyperscalers to direct ownership of frontier model developers and adjacent infrastructure platforms.

The scale of those private companies underscores the potential impact. Anthropic has recently been valued at $965 billion, reflecting intense investor demand for leading foundation model providers. The company is also believed to be operating at an annualized revenue run rate approaching $50 billion, driven by rapid enterprise adoption of its Claude models, though those revenues come with substantial compute and training costs that remain opaque to public investors, CNBC reported. OpenAI, meanwhile, is generating billions in annualized revenue and reports that its products now reach hundreds of millions of weekly users, highlighting the speed at which consumer and enterprise AI adoption has scaled before any public-market scrutiny, Reuters reported.

SpaceX, while outside pure AI software, has become part of the broader frontier-technology capital stack. The Globe and Mail reported SpaceX believes its largest growth opportunity is artificial intelligence. The company has reportedly been valued in private markets in the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range in secondary transactions and fundraising discussions, reflecting the scale of demand for vertically integrated space, communications, and defense-adjacent infrastructure platforms.

Taken together, these listings could bring several trillion dollars of new equity to public markets over time—large enough to reshape the makeup of the global mega-cap technology cohort. But the more consequential shift may not be their size. Public markets would force a level of financial disclosure that private funding rounds have largely obscured. Investors would be able to assess how effectively leading AI companies convert massive compute expenditure into durable revenue, how dependent they remain on hyperscaler distribution, and whether current growth rates justify valuations built on rapidly evolving technology cycles.

It would also expose the circular nature of the AI ecosystem more directly. Hyperscalers fund model developers, model developers drive demand for compute, and compute providers feed back into hyperscaler revenue growth. In private markets, that loop has reinforced valuations across the stack. In public markets, it would be subject to quarterly scrutiny. When these companies do list, they will not simply expand the AI trade but redefine it. The question for investors will no longer be which layer of the stack benefits most from AI adoption. It would be whether the companies building the models can sustain the economics of the infrastructure they helped create.

OpenAI has acquired cloud-based developer Ona to power Codex with secure, customer-controlled cloud infrastructure for long-running AI agents. The ChatGPT parent company said the integration will allow Codex to complete tasks that could take hours or days in minutes, while also making it easier for organizations to deploy agents in production with stronger visibility and oversight. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and the companies will continue operating independently until the deal is completed.

Ona, which has helped shift software development workflows into cloud-based environments and supports more than 2 million developers, already shares customers with OpenAI. The acquisition comes as Codex expands beyond its roots as a coding assistant into a broader platform for research, analysis, automation and software development. OpenAI said Codex now has more than 5 million weekly users, a 400% increase from earlier this year.

Strategic Integration

OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT), said organizations should be able to use persistent, agent-based systems with confidence, knowing those agents run within environments that satisfy their security, governance, and operational standards. The company added that this requires clear control over deployment environments, system access, credential boundaries, activity logging, and the review process for how work is executed and approved.

Leadership Perspective

"Agents need more than intelligence; they need a trusted workspace," Ona co-founder and Chief Executive Johannes Landgraf said in a statement. "We built Ona to give agents cloud environments with the context, control and collaboration enterprises require. Joining OpenAI lets us bring that foundation into Codex, helping organizations deploy agents with confidence and giving humans more agency over their work."

Future Operations

After the acquisition closes, Ona’s team will join OpenAI and work alongside the Codex group to build secure, persistent execution capabilities for enterprise customers. Together, the two companies aim to help engineering teams take on long-running software tasks more safely and effectively across the full lifecycle—from running tests and fixing issues to modernizing applications, patching vulnerabilities, and managing complex workflows over time.