The AI IPO party is not over. But the bouncer is suddenly checking IDs.
Aloke Gupte, Citi’s co-head of global equity capital markets, said on October 22, 2026 that investors are becoming more selective about initial public offerings tied to artificial intelligence. The reason is the growing bill for building out AI infrastructure, and the open question of who can keep paying it.
Who is feeling the squeeze
Gupte’s warning centers on companies that need to keep raising money to fund their expansion. In AI, that describes a lot of the field.
The pressure is sharpest among so-called neocloud providers. These are companies built specifically to rent out AI and cloud computing capacity, rather than giant tech firms that run cloud businesses on the side.
CoreWeave, one of the best-known names in the category, offers a live example. Its shares fell more than 3% on October 20, 2026, and reportedly lost nearly 25% over the week in mid-to-late October as borrowing costs spiked.
The IPO calendar keeps slipping
Multiple AI-linked offerings have been postponed recently because of market conditions.
SoftBank-backed SB Energy has delayed its plans. Anthropic has also pushed back its listing and is now slated for mid-November. OpenAI’s offering has been pushed into 2027.
US investment-grade tech debt issuance has been running at more than twice the pace of the previous year, reflecting a shift toward reliance on debt financing for capital expenditures.
Big players, bigger advantage
Citi analysts have said that larger providers with significant capacity are in a better position to handle expensive capital conditions.
What this means
Anthropic’s mid-November date is now a test case. How that deal is received, if it proceeds on schedule, could set the tone for every AI-linked company waiting in the queue behind it.
CoreWeave’s share price is another useful gauge. As a publicly traded neocloud, it effectively serves as a real-time sentiment check on how markets view the business model that many would-be IPO candidates share.
Investment-grade tech issuance running at more than double last year’s pace shows how much the sector is relying on borrowed money.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.