Less than a year after raising $40 billion in the largest private tech funding round in history, OpenAI is reportedly closing in on another record-setting investment. Bloomberg reports that the AI firm is finalizing a round expected to top $100 billion, potentially lifting its valuation above $850 billion. The round is not yet closed, but investors are expected to finalize allocations by the end of the month.
Major corporate backers are anticipated to include Amazon, which could commit as much as $50 billion, SoftBank at $30 billion, Nvidia at $20 billion, and Microsoft. Venture capital firms are expected to follow with additional investments after corporate commitments are finalized.
Infrastructure and Spending
The funding will support OpenAI’s ongoing investment in infrastructure, which involves multi-trillion-dollar commitments to companies such as Nvidia and Oracle. These expenditures reflect the compute-intensive nature of large-scale AI models and the company’s push to expand model capabilities, training speed, and deployment.
While analysts are increasingly focused on when OpenAI might turn a profit, CEO Sam Altman told CNBC that growth remains the top priority. “We are growing at an extremely fast rate right now,” Altman said. “As long as we can have reasonable unit economics, we should focus on continuing to grow faster and faster, and we’ll get profitable when we think it makes sense.”
IPO and Competitive Landscape
The massive funding round positions OpenAI to potentially accelerate its initial public offering, which could occur as early as later this year. The company faces growing competition from Anthropic, which is also reportedly preparing for a public listing. The race to go public underscores investor interest in the commercial potential of frontier AI companies, which are increasingly seen as central to the future of computing and enterprise software.
If completed, this round would more than double OpenAI’s previous fundraising record, reflecting the scale of investor confidence in the company’s AI models and market positioning, despite the ongoing financial demands of building and operating large-scale AI infrastructure.
