OpenAI is raising $100 billion at a valuation above $850 billion

OpenAI completes one of the largest funding rounds in the history of the technology industry. According to sources familiar with the details of the negotiations, the company is raising $100 billion at a valuation exceeding $850 billion. Among the investors are Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank and Microsoft. If the deal closes on these terms, OpenAI will join the narrow circle of private companies whose value is comparable to the world's largest public corporations.

Just two years ago, such figures would have sounded fantastic. In early 2023, OpenAI was valued at approximately $29 billion — at the time, this seemed like a bold forecast for a company operating on a non-profit basis. But ChatGPT changed everything. The product, launched in November 2022, gained 100 million users in two months and forced the entire technology sector to reassess its stakes in the race for artificial intelligence. Since then, OpenAI has traveled from a research laboratory to one of the most influential players in the world of technology — and each new funding round only confirmed this status.

The composition of investors in the current deal speaks for itself. Microsoft has already invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI and received the rights to integrate the company's models into its products — from Azure to Copilot. Participation in the new round strengthens these positions and signals a long-term bet on partnership.

Amazon, in turn, is developing its own AI ecosystem through AWS and competing models, but an investment in OpenAI allows it to hedge risks and remain at the center of events regardless of who ultimately sets the industry standards. Nvidia is a separate story: the company manufactures graphics processors on which the vast majority of modern language models are trained, and its interest in OpenAI is both strategic and commercial in nature. SoftBank, known for large-scale and often controversial technology bets, continues its course toward dominance in the AI sector following investments in dozens of startups around the world.

A valuation of $850 billion requires contextualization. For comparison: public giants such as TSMC or Meta are worth exactly that much today. OpenAI, meanwhile, remains a private company that only recently began to actively monetize its products through subscriptions and corporate licenses. The main source of revenue is the ChatGPT Plus subscription plan, the API for developers, and corporate contracts. The company is still unprofitable: according to available data, operating expenses for training and supporting models amount to billions of dollars per year. But investors clearly factor into the valuation not current financial performance, but the potential of the market, which according to various forecasts could exceed a trillion dollars by 2030.

For the industry, this deal means several things at once. First, it de facto consolidates OpenAI's position as a leader — a company around which a coalition of the largest technology corporations is built. Second, it increases pressure on competitors: Google with its Gemini, Anthropic with Claude, and Meta with its open-source Llama models are forced to react — either by increasing their own investments or rethinking their strategies. Third, the concentration of capital around a few players raises a natural question about how competitive the AI market remains and whether it is transforming into an oligopoly even before reaching maturity.

It is also noteworthy that the deal is happening at a moment when OpenAI is undergoing internal transformation. The company is moving toward a commercial structure that will allow investors to make a profit — moving away from its original non-profit model. This inevitably raises questions about how the balance will change between the stated mission — "developing AI for the benefit of humanity" — and the interests of shareholders who have invested hundreds of billions of dollars.

If the round closes on the stated terms, OpenAI will find itself in a unique position: a private company with a valuation comparable to the economies of medium-sized nations, and with a blank check to determine what artificial intelligence will look like over the next five years. The stakes have rarely been higher — for the company itself and for the entire industry.