For years, investors have watched the AI revolution from the sidelines of private markets. The biggest winners, OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic, have remained largely inaccessible to public investors while their valuations climbed into the hundreds of billions. That may soon change.
According to one of the globe’s most influential investors, Charles-Henry Monchau, CIO of Syz Group, the arrival of these giants on public markets could become “a stress test, for valuations, for passive-flow plumbing, and for the market’s appetite for trillion-dollar narratives built on losses today and transformation tomorrow.”
The numbers are staggering. SpaceX is reportedly being valued at around $1.75 trillion, potentially making it the largest IPO in financial history. OpenAI could command a valuation exceeding $1 trillion, while Anthropic is emerging as another heavyweight contender. Together, these companies could represent nearly $3 trillion of market value seeking a home in public portfolios.
But this is about far more than three high-profile listings. The upcoming IPO wave will be the first real attempt to answer a question that has hovered over markets since the launch of ChatGPT: how much is the AI future actually worth?
In the balance
Investors have already rewarded established technology leaders such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet for their exposure to artificial intelligence. Yet those companies generate substantial cash flows today. The next generation of AI champions is different. They are valued primarily on what they might become rather than what they currently earn.
OpenAI perfectly captures that dilemma. The company sits at the center of the generative AI revolution and has become synonymous with the technology itself. Yet the economics remain a work in progress. Building and operating frontier AI models requires extraordinary amounts of capital, computing power and energy. As Monchau notes, OpenAI remains “the poster child for growth at all costs,” with investors effectively betting that future productivity gains across the global economy will justify today’s enormous valuation.
SpaceX presents a different but equally ambitious story. It is no longer simply a rocket company. Between reusable launch systems, government contracts and the rapid expansion of Starlink’s global satellite network, Elon Musk’s aerospace venture is positioning itself as a critical piece of future communications infrastructure.
Investors are being asked to value not only a successful business, but a vision of how humanity connects, communicates and potentially expands beyond Earth.
The implications extend well beyond Silicon Valley. If these IPOs debut strongly and maintain their valuations, they could inject fresh momentum into global equity markets and reinforce confidence in the broader AI investment narrative.
Capital gravity
Capital would likely continue flowing toward innovation-driven sectors, encouraging further investment in artificial intelligence, automation and next-generation infrastructure.
However, the reverse is equally true.
“If they price richly and hold up, they extend the boom. If they falter… they could accelerate a rotation out of the most overhyped corners of tech,” Monchau warns.
Markets have seen transformative technologies before. Railways, automobiles, the internet and smartphones all created immense wealth, but they also generated periods of speculation where expectations raced ahead of reality. The challenge for investors is distinguishing between revolutionary technologies and unrealistic valuations.
What makes this moment unique is the sheer scale involved. Index funds and passive investment vehicles may eventually be forced to absorb massive positions in these companies, increasing their influence on benchmark indices and potentially concentrating risk further within global equity markets.
Yet Monchau does not see these IPOs as a trigger for an inevitable market correction. Instead, he believes they will serve as a referendum on investor confidence itself. As he puts it, “The most likely outcome is not that SpaceX or OpenAI causes a correction. It is that they act as the market’s referendum on itself.”
In many ways, that may be the most important takeaway. The AI revolution is no longer just a technological story. It is becoming a financial one. When OpenAI and SpaceX eventually ring the opening bell, investors won’t simply be pricing companies. They will be pricing their belief in the future.
