27 Feb (Reuters) – OpenAI announced on Friday that it is raising US$110 billion in a historic financing round that would value the creator of ChatGPT at US$840 billion, in a deal that signals the accelerated pace of investment in artificial intelligence.
The funding round — one of the largest private equity raises in history — includes a $30 billion investment from SoftBank, $30 billion from Nvidia and $50 billion from Amazon, and comes ahead of the AI startup’s expected mega IPO later this year.
OpenAI said it expects more investors to participate in the round as it progresses.
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Big tech companies and big-time investors like SoftBank are in a race to form partnerships with OpenAI — which is investing heavily in data centers — betting that closer ties with the company would give them a competitive edge in the AI race.
For OpenAI, the new funding will help secure advanced AI chips and the computing power needed to maintain its leading position in the AI sector, especially as competition from rivals such as Anthropic and Alphabet’s Google increases.
The launch of Google’s Gemini 3 in November gave the Alphabet-owned company a stronger foothold in its race to catch up to OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, while Anthropic cemented its lead in the enterprise AI market with its specialized coding tool.
OpenAI, which has not yet turned a profit, aims to reach a total computing investment of approximately US$600 billion by 2030, a source told Reuters last week.
Nvidia investment
Nvidia’s investment in OpenAI gives the chip giant a financial stake in one of its largest customers, expanding the already consolidated relationship between two of the main names in the AI industry.
This also highlights a growing trend in the technology and AI sector where companies invest and enter into supply agreements with each other, raising concerns about ‘circular’ funding arrangements.
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The circular nature of these businesses has become a cause for concern for Wall Street: The world’s most valuable technology stocks have suffered sharp declines in 2026 after years of extraordinary gains, as investors question whether relentless investments in AI will generate enough returns to justify their lofty valuations.
It was not immediately clear whether Nvidia’s $30 billion investment replaced a previous commitment, announced in September, that Nvidia would invest up to $100 billion in the startup.
OpenAI and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for clarification.
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The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Nvidia’s initial plan had stalled after the company expressed doubts about the deal. Negotiations for the original deal, which was expected to be concluded in a few weeks, dragged on for months.
OpenAI announced on Friday that it will also use the chipmaker’s latest ‘Rubin’ systems, which represent 5 gigawatts of computing power – enough power to power millions of US homes.
In addition to the $50 billion investment, OpenAI and Amazon also reached an agreement in which OpenAI will utilize 2 gigawatts of computing power powered by Amazon’s Trainium AI chips.
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The companies are also expanding their $38 billion cloud deal signed last year, with OpenAI saying it will invest an additional $100 billion in Amazon Web Services over the next eight years. Additionally, OpenAI will work with Amazon to develop custom models for the e-commerce giant’s engineering teams.
Amazon will start with an initial investment of $15 billion, followed by another $35 billion in the coming months when certain conditions are met, the companies said.
Amazon Web Services will also be the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI Frontier, the ChatGPT creator’s enterprise platform for building and running AI agents.
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The partnership does not change OpenAI’s existing relationship with Microsoft, with Microsoft Azure still remaining the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI’s APIs, which provide access to the company’s models, the companies said.
OpenAI’s proprietary products will continue to be hosted on Azure, and Microsoft retains the exclusive license and access to the intellectual property for all OpenAI models and products.
With this latest investment, the amount invested by SoftBank in OpenAI is expected to reach 64.6 billion dollars, representing a stake of around 13%, according to the Japanese conglomerate.
ChatGPT now serves more than 900 million weekly active users, OpenAI said, adding that it has already surpassed the 50 million consumer subscriber mark. January and February are on track to become the months with the highest number of new subscribers, the company said.
Its AI-assisted coding product, Codex, has also grown in scale – the number of weekly Codex users has more than tripled since the beginning of the year, reaching 1.6 million, according to the company.
