OpenAI has raised $110 billion in fresh capital from a trio of tech and investment heavyweights — Amazon, SoftBank and Nvidia — in a deal that values the ChatGPT maker at about $840 billion and cements Chief Executive Sam Altman’s pivot toward taking the company public.
The funding round, the largest in OpenAI’s history, prices the company at $730 billion on a pre-money basis, with the new capital lifting its implied valuation to roughly $840 billion, or about 1,200 trillion won. The deal, disclosed on Feb. 27 local time, comes just four months after secondary share sales valued OpenAI at $500 billion and is already reviving debate on Wall Street over whether artificial intelligence is in bubble territory.
Amazon is committing $50 billion, making it the single largest participant in the round. The e‑commerce and cloud giant will inject $15 billion upfront, with the remaining $35 billion to follow within months once certain undisclosed conditions are met. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that those triggers are either an OpenAI initial public offering or a formal declaration that the company has achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI), a still‑contested milestone in the industry.
SoftBank, led by Chairman Masayoshi Son, is adding $30 billion, taking its total investment in OpenAI to $64.6 billion and lifting its expected stake to around 13%. The Japanese group’s latest commitment will be deployed in three tranches at three‑month intervals starting in April. SoftBank will receive preferred shares that automatically convert to common stock once OpenAI lists, giving it a direct path into the public equity.
Nvidia, whose graphics processors underpin much of today’s AI boom, is investing $30 billion in the round. The chipmaker had previously been exploring a $100 billion investment structure with OpenAI last year. The Financial Times reported the new deal replaces that plan, though Reuters said this has not been independently confirmed.
Alongside the capital raise, OpenAI unveiled a strategic partnership with Amazon that tightens its ties to the world’s largest cloud provider even as it maintains its long‑standing alliance with Microsoft.
Under the agreement, OpenAI will run workloads on Amazon’s in‑house AI training chip, Trainium, via Amazon Web Services’ data center infrastructure. The two companies also plan to co‑develop customized AI models for use in Amazon’s own applications, and AWS will become the exclusive cloud distribution channel for customers of OpenAI’s enterprise platform, Frontier.
The arrangement marks a significant deepening of Amazon’s relationship with OpenAI, despite Amazon having been an early investor in Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s main rivals. It also reinforces the trend of major cloud providers using strategic investments to secure AI workloads and chip demand for their own infrastructure.
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest backer to date, moved quickly to stress that its position is unchanged despite the entry of rivals such as Amazon into the cap table. In a joint statement, OpenAI and Microsoft said “nothing announced today changes the terms of Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI,” adding that their commercial and revenue‑sharing arrangements remain in place and that OpenAI’s proprietary models will continue to run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud.
Earlier this month, Microsoft itself joined a $30 billion funding round for Anthropic, underscoring how the largest U.S. tech firms are hedging their AI bets across multiple players even as they deepen flagship partnerships.
The new valuation and the scale of cross‑investment are rekindling concerns among some investors and analysts that the AI sector is overheating. When OpenAI’s valuation hit $500 billion in October via sales of stock held by current and former employees, skeptics already warned of a potential bubble. The roughly 50% jump in less than half a year has sharpened those worries.
On Wall Street, some have questioned whether large strategic investors are engaging in “self‑dealing” — pouring tens of billions of dollars into OpenAI in part to lock in demand for their own chips, cloud capacity and data center infrastructure, rather than purely on traditional financial metrics.
Altman, speaking to CNBC, acknowledged the unease. “I understand where the concerns come from,” he said, but argued that “it makes sense when new revenue flows into the entire AI ecosystem.” He suggested that as AI companies grow into the role he envisions for them in the global economy, the web of capital and commercial ties among chipmakers, cloud providers and model developers will appear more rational.
More notably, Altman used the moment to clearly signal his intention to take OpenAI public. “If AI companies become as important as we think they will, I want to make it accessible to all investors,” he said, effectively formalizing plans for an IPO and marking a shift from the company’s earlier tone.
At the end of last year, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar had said she did not want the company “tied to the shackles of an IPO,” while Altman himself remarked in December that his expectations for the job of a listed‑company CEO were “0%.” The latest comments indicate a reassessment as OpenAI’s capital needs and strategic ambitions expand.
The $110 billion round, combined with deepened alliances across Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia and SoftBank’s renewed bet on an AI‑driven future, positions OpenAI at the center of a rapidly consolidating ecosystem. It also ensures that any correction in AI valuations — or confirmation that the current optimism is justified — will be felt first and most acutely in the company now priced as one of the world’s most valuable private tech firms.
Copyright ⓒ 뉴스로드 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지
본 콘텐츠는 뉴스픽 파트너스에서 공유된 콘텐츠입니다.
