OpenAI announced Monday that it has confidentially filed preliminary paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, positioning the ChatGPT maker to potentially become a publicly traded company.

The filing comes just over a week after OpenAI's main rival Anthropic disclosed on June 1 that it had also submitted confidential IPO paperwork. Both artificial intelligence companies are now following Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has begun an IPO roadshow marketing itself as an AI-focused space company.

"We recently submitted a confidential S-1," OpenAI said in a post on X, referring to the formal SEC filing required for public offerings. The company added that it has not decided on timing and noted that "it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman first publicly discussed the possibility of an IPO last fall, describing it as the "most likely path" for the company given its size and need for substantial capital to advance its technology. The San Francisco-based company, which began in 2015 as a nonprofit, is currently valued at $852 billion.

In preparation for a potential public offering, OpenAI reorganized its business structure last year, converting to a public benefit corporation while remaining under nonprofit control. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in an April interview that the company was already operating with "the good hygiene of a public company," including measuring revenue as a publicly traded firm would need to report to the SEC.

The move reflects the intensifying competition among major AI companies to access public capital markets as they seek funding for expensive artificial intelligence development and infrastructure needs.