OpenAI Closes Record $110B Funding Round
OpenAI has closed a historic $110 billion private funding round, the largest ever. The deal, with backing from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank, pushes OpenAI's valuation to an estimated $730 billion. As part of the investment, Amazon Web Services will become the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI's most advanced models.
This latest funding round more than doubles the previous record for a private technology financing, which was OpenAI's own $40 billion raise in April 2025. The company's valuation has skyrocketed, climbing from $300 billion in early 2025 to $500 billion just four months ago, before reaching the current $730 billion pre-money valuation. Amazon's $50 billion commitment marks the single largest investment it has ever made in another company. The deal also includes $30 billion from Nvidia and another $30 billion from SoftBank, which has consistently backed OpenAI in previous mega-rounds. The partnership fundamentally reshapes the cloud landscape for AI. While OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft remains, this deal makes Amazon Web Services the exclusive third-party cloud provider for a new platform called OpenAI Frontier, which is designed to manage teams of AI agents. This move directly challenges Microsoft Azure's prior exclusivity with OpenAI's models. As part of the deal, OpenAI is expanding a previous infrastructure agreement with AWS by an additional $100 billion over eight years. This includes a commitment to utilize 2 gigawatts of computing capacity powered by Amazon's custom Trainium AI chips, locking in massive-scale infrastructure for training future models. The investment is the latest escalation in an expensive AI arms race, with competitors also raising staggering sums. Earlier in February, rival AI startup Anthropic raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation, while Elon Musk's xAI has also recently secured billions in funding. This alliance can be seen as a strategic front against Google. Both Amazon, with its AWS cloud and Trainium chips, and Nvidia, with its dominant GPUs, are in direct competition with Google's cloud services and its custom TPU AI accelerators. The capital infusion is aimed at securing the immense computing power needed for the next phase of AI development, with OpenAI targeting a total compute spend of roughly $600 billion through 2030. The record-breaking round comes ahead of an expected mega-IPO from the AI startup.
