Everyone's asking if AI is the next dot-com bubble. Nvidia and 25 companies just gave a clue.

Update, July 25: OpenAI signed the letter a day after this published, so the setup below is now half wrong. Anthropic still hasn't signed. We covered the full list of who signed and who didn't here. The IPO call at the end of this piece doesn't change, but the read on OpenAI sitting the fight out does.

Every time I scroll through the internet I see the same question. Are we in an AI bubble similar to the dot-com bubble? I'm done with the vague answers. This week, two of the biggest AI companies sat out a fight that gave us the clearest look yet at where AI's incentives split, and I think it previews exactly how this bubble will end.

On July 24, Nvidia's (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang used his first ever post on X. He shared a joint letter backing open AI models that 25 companies signed in total. The roster spans the industry:

• Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT) and Palantir (PLTR)
• IBM
• ServiceNow (NOW) and CrowdStrike (CRWD)
• Perplexity, Hugging Face and the Linux Foundation

The letter states that restricting open weight models would "weaken, rather than strengthen, America's position in the global AI race."

Two big names are missing from that list, OpenAI and Anthropic. Both companies have been the loudest voices in Washington about the risks of unrestricted open models, especially Chinese ones like Moonshot AI's Kimi. It comes down to who controls the frontier, and the two closed labs sat this fight out on purpose.

Huang's argument is simple. It doesn't matter if a model is open or closed, somebody still has to run it. He put it this way in a recent interview: "If there's great AI, even if it's open, wherever it comes from, there will be more use. Whenever there's more use, you'll have to sell a lot more NVIDIA computers." More models means more fine tuning. That extra fine tuning turns into more inference, and inference is what fills data centers. My original chip thesis holds up here. Open models flooding the market feeds the chip trade instead of threatening it.

Now let me push back on my own read. I originally figured OpenAI and Anthropic staying closed would restrain chip demand. It actually goes both ways. OpenAI and Anthropic are already two of the biggest compute buyers alive. Microsoft, Oracle (ORCL) and Amazon (AMZN) have committed tens of billions between them, and Google (GOOGL) is not far behind. Closed labs don't buy less compute. They buy more of it, because they're racing for the frontier instead of settling for good enough. What's really at stake is who keeps the moat. Open-weight companies want distribution and closed labs want control. But every company in this fight wants the same thing from Nvidia and the whole semiconductor industry: more chips.

So where is the actual finish line? My bet is on the IPOs. OpenAI confidentially filed in June 2026, reportedly aiming near a $1 trillion valuation, though a rocky SpaceX debut has people talking about pushing it into 2027. Anthropic filed a week earlier and is still tracking toward a possible late 2026 listing off a private valuation near $965 billion. Neither company is public yet, but both are already lined up at the door.

It reminded me of Coinbase (COIN), which went public basically at the top of the 2021 crypto cycle. By the time a hot private company wants public money, the early money is already eyeing the exit. Retail usually becomes the buyer holding the bag at the richest multiple of the whole cycle. If OpenAI and Anthropic both list in the same window, a wall of insiders and employees gets its first real shot at liquidity all at once. That is usually when a mania finds its ceiling.

I'll hedge this too, because I want to be straight with you. IPOs don't always mark the top. Palantir kept ripping for years after everyone called its 2020 direct listing overpriced. Sometimes IPO cash just funds the next round of data centers instead of ending the party. I'm not putting a date on this call, just a level I'm watching. Once both of these companies are actually trading, that's when I start taking the bubble talk seriously instead of just arguing about it online.

For now, a letter and a confidential filing aren't enough to make me sell anything. The calendar has my attention instead. Late 2026 into 2027 is when this theory gets tested for real.

Sources

• "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," dated July 24, 2026, and its published signatory list
• Jensen Huang's first post on X, July 24, 2026, and his interview remarks on open models
• Reported OpenAI and Anthropic confidential IPO filings and private valuations, June 2026
• Related coverage: the letter and all 25 original signatories, OpenAI signing a day later, and the $725 billion capex question behind the bubble debate

This is general market commentary and opinion, not investment advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.

Related: OpenAI signed the open-weights letter after all, and Anthropic still has not.