OpenAI has secured a $40 billion investment in a new funding round led by SoftBank, pushing its valuation to $300 billion. This marks the largest funding round for a private tech company in history, as reported by CNBC. OpenAI is set to receive $10 billion upfront, with SoftBank investing $7.5 billion and an additional $2.5 billion from an investor syndicate. The remaining $30 billion will be delivered by year’s end, contingent upon OpenAI converting into a for-profit entity. If this transition does not occur, the company risks losing a quarter of the deal.
This funding follows the announcement of Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture with SoftBank, Oracle, and the Abu Dhabi fund MGX, aimed at constructing massive AI data centers over the next four years. Recently, OpenAI gained 1 million users in a single hour, largely due to a viral feature in ChatGPT that generates Studio Ghibli-inspired AI art. CEO Sam Altman also announced plans to release a powerful new open-weight language model with reasoning capabilities in the coming months. Despite its rapid growth, OpenAI continues to burn significant cash, projecting $12.7 billion in revenue this year but not expecting to be cash flow positive until 2029. OpenAI’s mission remains focused on building AGI that benefits all of humanity. — new from The Verge
