Investing.com -- OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate has surged more than 70% since the start of the third quarter, reaching nearly $70 billion, according to recent financial data cited by Axios. The revenue milestone coincides with OpenAI’s annual DevDay conference taking place in San Francisco today, highlighting the rapid commercial expansion of its developer ecosystem.

The growth is broad-based and accelerating rapidly. OpenAI’s business-to-business revenue has climbed over 100% since July 2026, while consumer revenue added in Q3 alone has already eclipsed the company’s entire consumer haul for 2025. Driven by subscriptions, enterprise demand, the Codex coding tool, and an emerging advertising business, the ~$70 billion annualized figure—based on the most recent monthly pace—marks a sharp jump from the $40 billion run rate reported by Bloomberg and Forbes just last month. However, because Axios noted a lack of visibility into the company’s expense base, OpenAI’s actual profitability trajectory remains unclear.

These staggering figures arrive just as OpenAI’s chief rival, Anthropic, accelerates its push toward the public markets. Anthropic’s annualized run rate crossed $65 billion by the end of July, a more than sevenfold increase from its year-end 2025 pace. According to a draft IPO prospectus reviewed by Reuters, Anthropic’s booked revenue jumped twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025. The filing also disclosed a massive $518 billion in future cloud and computing obligations, alongside an unusual risk factor warning investors that its technology could pose an "existential risk" to humanity.

Because both AI labs remain strictly private, public market investors are increasingly using their big-tech partners as trading proxies. Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), which boasts deep cloud infrastructure ties to OpenAI, saw its shares jump 7% following the Axios report, emerging as the most direct equity expression of OpenAI’s momentum. Similarly, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recorded $24.1 billion in fiscal-year 2026 revenue from its commercial arrangements with OpenAI, illustrating how deeply the AI arms race has already shaped big-tech balance sheets.

The stakes of the impending AI IPO cycle are immense. OpenAI was valued at $852 billion following a March 2026 funding round, with the Financial Times reporting early-stage discussions surrounding a $1.2 trillion valuation.

Two upcoming catalysts are expected to sharpen the financial picture considerably:

• The Anthropic IPO: Whenever the listing proceeds, it will establish the first definitive public-market valuation benchmark for a generative AI pure-play, enabling a direct financial comparison with OpenAI.

• OpenAI’s Potential Filing: While no date has been confirmed, an OpenAI IPO would force the company to finally expose audited revenue and expense figures, resolving the cost-side gap that currently obscures its true margins.

For investors in Microsoft, Oracle, and the broader semiconductor ecosystem, these public debuts are critical test cases. A high public valuation for either AI lab would validate the historic infrastructure spending currently driving the sector and could further lift near-term sentiment across AI infrastructure equities.

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