OpenAI Closes Record $110B Raise
OpenAI has closed a record-breaking $110 billion funding round at a $730 billion valuation, with Amazon committing $50 billion. Other major backers include NVIDIA and SoftBank. Despite the massive haul, insiders warn that the capital required for next-gen AI models is accelerating so fast that even this may not be enough.
This $110 billion funding round is the largest for any private technology company in history, more than doubling the previous record of $40 billion, which was also set by OpenAI in 2025. The new capital brings OpenAI's post-money valuation to $840 billion. For perspective, rival Anthropic's most recent funding round in February 2026 raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation. The investments from Amazon and NVIDIA are not straightforward cash infusions but are tightly coupled with massive compute and distribution commitments. Amazon's $50 billion investment is contingent on OpenAI expanding its existing cloud agreement with AWS by $100 billion over eight years and consuming at least 2 gigawatts of Amazon's proprietary Trainium AI chip capacity. AWS also becomes the exclusive third-party cloud distributor for OpenAI's new enterprise platform, Frontier. Similarly, NVIDIA's $30 billion stake is tied to OpenAI committing to use 3 gigawatts of dedicated inference capacity and 2 gigawatts for training on its next-generation "Vera Rubin" GPU architecture. This massive hardware commitment is crucial as the cost to build and deploy 5 gigawatts of these advanced accelerators is estimated to be over $300 billion, factoring in datacenter construction and other infrastructure. SoftBank's $30 billion investment appears to be a more direct capital injection and will be paid in three tranches, concluding in October 2026. This latest infusion brings SoftBank's total investment in OpenAI to $64.6 billion. The overall deal structure, particularly with Amazon and NVIDIA, essentially provides discounted compute infrastructure that boosts OpenAI's valuation without diluting the investors' own revenues. The enormous capital is a necessity in the race to build Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). OpenAI does not expect to be free cash flow positive until 2030 and anticipates losses to continue until then. The physical infrastructure required for next-generation AI is staggering, with some individual data centers now requiring up to 2 gigawatts of power, equivalent to a large nuclear power plant. This funding significantly increases the value of the OpenAI Foundation's stake in the OpenAI Group to over $180 billion, bolstering its resources. The company reports strong user growth, with ChatGPT allegedly reaching over 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million consumer subscribers. This round positions OpenAI for a potential IPO, which could happen as early as the second half of this year.
