Ahead of its eagerly awaited stock market debut, Nvidia-backed artificial intelligence startup CoreWeave has inked a five-year cloud computing deal worth $11.9 billion with OpenAI.

Through a private placement at the time of its IPO, CoreWeave would issue shares valued at $350 million to the ChatGPT manufacturer, giving OpenAI a stake in the company.

Based in Livingston, New Jersey, one of the most popular AI firms in the United States, CoreWeave, will not get any money from the sale of its shares to OpenAI. The new agreement and the placement will likely be disclosed in CoreWeave's revised initial public offering (IPO) filing.

According to reports, the timing and scale of CoreWeave's stock market debut are contingent on market conditions and that the conditions of the agreement with OpenAI may alter. The firm is anticipated to list its shares in New York in the upcoming weeks.

A successful deal would give CoreWeave a significant boost ahead of its record-breaking share offering, which is anticipated to be the highlight of the 2025 U.S. IPO lineup.

The conversations with OpenAI coincide with a surge in investor interest in generative AI. Global demand for infrastructure, like data centers and powerful servers, has increased due to the AI boom, which has fuelled chipmakers like Nvidia and other large tech companies.

If CoreWeave's IPO is successful, it may open the door for other AI businesses that have recently thought about going public. Switch, a data centre operator, has been considering an IPO at a $40 billion valuation, including debt.