Even as questions persist over revenue durability and the timeline to profitability, investors are poised to commit more than $100 billion to OpenAI, underscoring extraordinary confidence in its long-term dominance of the AI stack.
OpenAI is close to finalizing the first phase of a funding round expected to bring in more than $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg.
The deal would rank as one of the largest private financings ever completed.
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The deal, still subject to change, could lift OpenAI’s overall valuation — including the new capital — beyond $850 billion, higher than the roughly $830 billion previously discussed. The company’s pre-money valuation is expected to remain at $730 billion, one person said. At that level, OpenAI would sit among the most valuable private companies globally, rivaling the market capitalizations of established public technology giants.
The first tranche of funding is expected to come primarily from strategic investors deeply embedded in the AI ecosystem, including Amazon, SoftBank Group, Nvidia, and Microsoft, the people said. If allocations are finalized near the upper end of discussions, commitments from those corporate backers alone could approach $100 billion.
Amazon is expected to invest up to $50 billion, SoftBank as much as $30 billion, and Nvidia has discussed a commitment of around $20 billion, according to prior reporting. The funds are likely to be deployed in multiple tranches over the course of the year, aligning with infrastructure buildouts and chip procurement schedules.
Shares of SoftBank, which held roughly an 11% stake in OpenAI as of December, rose as much as 4% in Tokyo trading following reports of the deal. The next phase of the fundraising, expected to include venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds, and other financial investors, could push total proceeds substantially higher, some of the people said.
Representatives for OpenAI and the participating companies declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Capital Intensity of the AI Race
The scale of the financing reflects the extraordinary capital demands of frontier AI development. Training advanced large language models requires vast clusters of high-performance GPUs, specialized networking hardware, and hyperscale data centers with sophisticated cooling systems. Inference — running models for hundreds of millions of users — generates high recurring costs.
OpenAI has signaled that it plans to invest aggressively in infrastructure over the coming years, with ambitions that could involve trillions of dollars in long-term capital expenditures. The strategy mirrors a broader industry shift toward vertical integration, where model developers seek tighter control over compute supply, energy sourcing, and distribution channels.
Nvidia’s involvement is strategically aligned with its dominance in AI accelerators. Microsoft has already embedded OpenAI’s models across its Azure cloud platform and enterprise software offerings. Amazon, through its cloud computing arm, is expected to deepen its partnership with OpenAI, including expanded use of Amazon’s proprietary chips and cloud infrastructure, according to one person familiar with the discussions. These capital commitments are therefore intertwined with long-term commercial agreements.
Revenue Questions Persist
The unprecedented valuation comes even as market observers continue to debate OpenAI’s revenue durability and path to profitability. The company generates income through subscription tiers such as ChatGPT Plus, enterprise licensing agreements, and API usage fees charged to developers. However, the costs associated with model training and inference remain substantial.
Investors have poured an estimated $70 billion into OpenAI to date, according to Dealroom data, reflecting sustained appetite for exposure to generative AI. While analysts have questioned whether current monetization models can scale fast enough to offset infrastructure spending, the size of the pending raise suggests that backers are willing to tolerate near-term losses in exchange for long-term strategic positioning.
The logic, according to investors familiar with the thinking, is rooted in platform economics. AI is increasingly viewed as a foundational layer for productivity software, search, automation, content generation, and enterprise workflows. Companies that secure early dominance in foundational models could capture outsized value as downstream applications proliferate.
There is also a defensive dimension. Strategic investors such as Microsoft and Amazon are not merely financial participants; they are cloud providers competing for AI workloads. Backing OpenAI ensures preferential access to cutting-edge models while preventing rivals from consolidating exclusive partnerships.
SoftBank’s participation aligns with its history of making concentrated bets on transformative technologies, while Nvidia’s investment strengthens its position within the AI compute supply chain. For these firms, the return calculus extends beyond equity appreciation to ecosystem control and infrastructure utilization.
Market Implications of the Valuation
If finalized at an $850 billion valuation, the round would represent a dramatic step-up from OpenAI’s earlier valuations and reinforce the broader concentration of capital in a handful of AI leaders. It would also signal that private markets are willing to ascribe long-term platform value to generative AI companies even before clear profit visibility emerges.
That confidence stands in contrast to more cautious sentiment in other sectors of technology, where rising interest rates and macroeconomic uncertainty have tempered valuations. In AI, however, capital continues to flow at a historic scale, reflecting investor conviction that generative models will reshape enterprise software, knowledge work, and consumer interaction.
The transaction remains under negotiation, and details could change. Yet the magnitude of the proposed financing indicates that the global AI race is being defined not only by algorithmic breakthroughs, but by unprecedented financial firepower.
Despite ongoing questions about monetization and profitability timelines, investors appear willing to commit record sums to OpenAI. The bet is that scale, data access, and infrastructure depth will ultimately translate into durable market leadership — and that the company’s position at the center of the AI stack justifies extraordinary capital commitments.