Goldman Sachs sees IPO rebound driven by AI infrastructure boom

The U.S. has seen just shy of 50 IPOs so far this year, roughly double the pace at this point last year, Ben Snider says, with issuance already close to 2021 levels at about $120 billion. Goldman’s message on IPOs is not that the window has reopened, but that it may stay open long enough to change how the firm staffs, pitches, and prioritizes work. For Goldman bankers, that points to more than a headline comeback: it means a steadier flow of live mandates for equity capital markets teams, more pressure on analysts and associates, and a bigger share of client conversations centered on timing, valuation, and whether a company can survive life as a public name.

The IPO calendar is filling back in

Goldman’s 2026 outlook is built around a much bigger market than the one bankers lived through during the post-2021 slowdown. In Goldman’s forecast, U.S. IPO proceeds could rise to a record $160 billion this year, while the number of IPOs could double to 120. The firm ties that forecast to improving economic growth, stronger equity prices, and easier financial conditions, which together make it easier for companies to test investor appetite and for underwriters to place deals.

That matters inside Goldman because IPO activity is labor-intensive long before a company files. More live mandates mean more valuation work, more internal coordination across ECM, syndicate, coverage, and research, and more rounds with private-company executives who want a public market plan without giving up too much pricing power. When the pipeline is thin, bankers spend more time chasing prospects; when the calendar gets busy, the problem becomes execution and bandwidth.

Goldman’s view also suggests this is not a one-week burst in sentiment. Snider frames the rebound as part of a broader recovery after several muted years following the 2021 boom and the Federal Reserve’s aggressive hiking cycle. Companies raised the most through share sales in the first quarter since 2021, a sign that the lift in issuance has broadened beyond one bank’s own outlook.

AI is now the real capital-allocation story

The sharper part of Goldman’s argument is that the IPO rebound is being driven less by generic optimism and more by the capital needs of the AI buildout. Snider says the market’s growth engine is the need for funding behind AI infrastructure, which links public listings to the same force driving private-market valuations, data-center construction, and technology competition across sectors.

Goldman expects hyperscalers to spend about $5.3 trillion on AI and data centers from fiscal 2025 through 2030. The firm projects U.S. data-center power demand to more than double, rising from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 66 gigawatts in 2027.

The pitch is no longer only whether a tech company can command a public-market premium. It is also whether the company can fund the next round of servers, land, power, and cooling infrastructure without choking off growth.

Why the pipeline tilts toward AI and capital-heavy businesses

The current rebound looks selective, not euphoric. The market is recovering from a drought in deal flow, but the strongest opportunities are likely to land in large, capital-intensive businesses with credible growth narratives. That is a different posture from the frothier 2021 market, when many banks could lean on broad appetite for almost any public listing with a software label attached.

The AI boom has narrowed the field in a way that helps some teams and strains others. Coverage bankers who follow large private companies now need to understand not only revenue growth and margin expansion, but power demand, data-center access, supply-chain constraints, and the timing of huge capital outlays. That pushes the work deeper into technical diligence and makes research collaboration more valuable, because investors want a story they can underwrite beyond the first trading day.

Megadeals from SpaceX and OpenAI could add tens of billions more to the pipeline and keep underwriting desks busy even when the broader market remains uneven. If those companies move, the assignments will ripple well beyond the syndicate desk, touching sector bankers, capital markets teams, and the coverage groups that have to keep clients engaged while the market digests each new listing.

What it means for bankers inside Goldman

For analysts and associates, the practical effect is simple: more live IPO work usually means longer days, sharper deadlines, and more pressure to keep multiple processes moving at once. IPO prep is one of the most time-sensitive parts of investment banking, and a stronger calendar raises the odds that teams will be running pricing scenarios, editing drafts, and preparing management presentations late into the evening while still managing other capital-markets mandates.

It also affects career pathing. A busier ECM franchise can create more reps on execution, more exposure to high-profile clients, and better exit options for bankers who want to move into private equity, growth investing, or corporate development. At the same time, sustained deal volume can intensify the same work-life balance problems that define banking at Goldman: the hours get longer, the pace gets faster, and the expectation to stay fluent across market conditions gets harder to dodge.