OpenAI, one of the world’s most prominent players in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape, has bagged US$ 40 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG). This takes its valuation to a whopping US$ 300 billion, making it one of the largest private technology deals till date.
OpenAI issued an update on March funding on its website on Monday saying, “Today we’re announcing new funding—US$ 40 billion at a US$ 300 billion post-money valuation, which enables us to push the frontiers of AI research even further, scale our compute infrastructure, and deliver increasingly powerful tools for the 500 million people who use ChatGPT every week.”
ChatGPT has played a starring role in attracting investors. According to Bloomberg, the Generative AI (GenAI) is poised to be a $1.3 trillion market by 2032.
OpenAI said that this funding from SoftBank will help it to “continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) that benefits all of humanity.”
Readers would recall that in January this year, SBG had announced the “Stargate Project” together with OpenAI to build dedicated AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.
In a press release, SoftBank shared that it had entered into a definitive agreement with OpenAI to make follow-on investments of up to US$ 40 billion. It further explained that it was planning to syndicate out US$ 10 billion of the up to US$ 40 billion investment to co-investors. “Accordingly, SBG’s effective investment amount is expected to be up to US$ 30 billion,” it said, adding, “SBG has positioned OpenAI as its most important partner and invested US$ 2.2 billion in total through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 since September 2024.”
This news is significant for two reasons. Firstly, in a post-DeepSeek world, the numbers game has been altered dramatically when it comes to AI investments. Moreover, just last week, another AI player, CoreWeave, fell short of its target valuation of US$ 35 billion during its IPO, making industry watchers wonder whether investors regarded AI’s potential as overhyped.