OpenAI’s $110 billion funding pushes its valuation to $840 billion with backing from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Friday that the company has raised $110 billion in a blockbuster financing round that will value the ChatGPT maker at $840 billion.

The round, which is among the largest private capital raises on record, includes investments of $30 billion from SoftBank, $30 billion from Nvidia and $50 billion from Amazon. Reuters reported.

OpenAI said the funding comes ahead of the AI startup’s widely anticipated mega IPO later this year, with additional investors expected to join as the round progresses.

“We’ve raised $110 billion in funding from Amazon, NVIDIA, and SoftBank. We’re grateful for the support of our partners and have a lot of work to do to give you the tools you deserve,” Altman wrote in an

AI investment frenzy in big tech

The news agency said major tech companies and wealthy investors such as SoftBank are racing to form partnerships with OpenAI, which is spending heavily to build data centres.

These investors are betting that by tightening ties with the AI startup, they can gain privileged access to the latest AI models and infrastructure, a potential competitive advantage in the increasingly crowded AI race.

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This AI investment frenzy also strengthens OpenAI’s own position. The new capital will help it unlock advanced AI chips and expand the computing capacity it needs to maintain its leading position in the AI industry.

This is critical for OpenAI to maintain its lead as competition in the AI industry heats up with rivals such as Claude chatbot maker Anthropic and Google’s Gemini.

Anthropic’s Claude recently made headlines after the company launched Claude Code Security, a new AI tool that helps teams find and fix security issues that traditional methods often miss. This move underlined the company’s rapid growth and competitive strength in the artificial intelligence market.

Sam Altman on partnerships

In the statement announcing the collaboration, OpenAI CEO pointed out the strategic importance of the partnership with Amazon. “We’re excited to partner with Amazon to bring next-generation products to market, especially around new enterprise products like the stateful runtime environment. We’re also excited to get the most out of Tranium,” he said.

He also commented on OpenAI’s ties with Microsoft, highlighting their “great relationship.” Altman said his company’s stateless API will remain exclusive to Azure because it aims to build more capacity in Azure.

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“NVIDIA has long been one of our most important partners, and its chips are the foundation of AI computing. We’re grateful for their continued trust in us and excited to run their systems on AWS. Their next generation should be amazing,” Altman wrote in the X post.

He called SoftBank an “incredible and high-conviction partner” and added that OpenAI is excited to welcome it back as a major investor and expand collaboration across its broader ecosystem.