In a recent funding round, artificial intelligence company OpenAI has successfully raised $40 billion, led by SoftBank. Following this investment, OpenAI is now valued at $3 trillion. According to CNBC, this marks the largest financing ever received by a private technology company in history.
OpenAI will initially receive an injection of $10 billion, with SoftBank contributing $7.5 billion and the remaining $2.5 billion coming from a consortium of investors, as reported by Bloomberg. CNBC states that the remaining $30 billion is expected to be secured by the end of this year, contingent upon OpenAI officially transitioning into a for-profit entity before then. If the company fails to meet this requirement, it risks losing a quarter of the total funding amount.
This funding comes just months after OpenAI announced Stargate, a project involving a $5 trillion investment alongside SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX to build a massive AI data center. OpenAI has been growing rapidly: On Monday, CEO Sam Altman revealed that within just one hour of launching "Images in ChatGPT," a new feature enabling users to generate AI art in styles like Hayao Miyazaki’s, the company gained 1 million new users. On Wednesday, Altman also announced plans to release a powerful new open-source language model with reasoning capabilities in the coming months. The funding announcement highlighted that ChatGPT serves 500 million users weekly.
While ChatGPT has driven explosive growth for OpenAI, the company continues to burn through significant capital. Bloomberg recently reported that OpenAI projects revenue of $12.7 billion this year, a sharp increase from its annualized recurring revenue of $3.7 billion last year. However, the report suggests OpenAI may not achieve positive cash flow until 2029, by which time its revenue is forecasted to reach a staggering $12.5 trillion.
In its funding announcement, OpenAI reiterated its mission to develop "artificial general intelligence (AGI) that benefits all of humanity." Altman emphasized that realizing this goal requires vast computational power, energy resources, global infrastructure, and substantial financial backing. This latest round of funding brings OpenAI one step closer to achieving that vision.
